The 67th Games: Luke's Story
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: Luke Maddox, 15, is District Four's newest tribute. At the bottom of the Career pack, can he survive the Games? Meanwhile, Finnick and Scarlett find that being a victor can mean more than mentoring. FO/SD, SD/HA WARNING: SMUT
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the third installment in my Story of the Games series. The one before it is **_**The 66**__**th**__** Games: Scarlett's Story**_**. You don't have to read them all or all in order, but the characters are often recurring, so a lot of OCs would be unfamiliar if you didn't read the first two. They're not very long. This first chapter is in Scarlett's POV. She's an OC from the last story.**

**-J**

I ran my showers cold. Ever since the first morning of the Victory Tour, I had run my showers cold. Somehow, the luxury I had come to enjoy of warm showers felt like a cheap, sick pawn of the Capitol, just like me.

Blight had told me that there was something that was going to happen on reaping day that would require me to do things I didn't want to do, and that if I didn't react properly the people I loved would suffer. Those were the first words out of his mouth before we started on the Victory Tour. The first stop was District Twelve, where Haymitch entertained us with his drunken antics and dubbed me, "Sweetheart." Chaff greeted me like an old friend in Eleven. Finnick and I found we had instant friendship when I visited Four.

By the time we reached Seven again for the major festivities, paid for by the Capitol, I had made up my mind: I was distancing myself from Trish.

I couldn't get rid of my family. I loved them, I needed them, and it would absolutely break my father's heart. But teenage girls were fickle, and the Capitol would think nothing of a friendship between two such creatures falling apart over nothing. After all, it happened all the time. If my actions could hurt Trish by her being close to me, then I would rather she wasn't close to me.

I started as soon as the train arrived in District Seven, and I could tell Blight knew what I was up to when I pretended not to hear her as I greeted my "adoring" fans. He raised an eyebrow at me to ask if I was sure, but I ignored him just as I ignored her. I felt incredibly guilty in the pit of my stomach, but what was guilt if I was protecting her? From what I had seen of the other victors, not a lot of them had friends outside of each other, and families were almost as rare.

How easy would it be, I wondered, for them to take mine from me? Haymitch Abernathy, the mentor who reminded me most of myself, was a drunk old man who was really only in his thirties, bitter, angry, and alone in the world. He didn't sleep when it was dark out, and when he did sleep he kept a knife on hand. At the beginning of my life as a victor, even I was taking a knife to bed, until my sister warned me that my niece might wake me up some morning and get it through the skull.

Four year olds don't understand fear like I had experienced.

It was my father, though, who kept me from becoming Haymitch. The moment I stepped off the train, arriving back in District Seven, he hugged me tighter than ever before and wept openly, telling me how much he loved me, how proud of me he was, things he had hardly ever said in my lifetime. I guess my almost dying reminded him that I wasn't a permanent fixture of his life and that I, like my mother, could leave his world at any time. Hanna told me he hadn't left the screen for a second when the Games were on, and they always knew if I was on the screen by how silent he was being.

Trish hadn't understood, of course. She had gotten all up-in-arms, as I expected she would, and we had a very public spat, with her telling me I was just a piece of trash the Capitol wanted to play with and that I'd let them change me with their pretty clothes and their money. I told her that such accusations were rich coming from her, and did she enjoy her fifteen minutes of fame while I was fighting for my life?

The public spat had surprised many of her older friends and certainly her entire family. We had been inseparable for as long as anyone could remember. It served its purpose, however, and no matter how painful it had been, if something happened, the Capitol could no longer consider her my friend. She didn't even consider herself my friend. But I always would. After all, she had been my only friend for as long as I could remember. And it hurt, but Blight seemed to realize how necessary I found it and told my family that it was the nerves making my cry myself to sleep for the next few days. I was simply tired from all the travelling and I would be fine in time.

My father had gotten up on his own for the first reaping day since I turned twelve. It was like the fact that I was ineligible for reaping made him his old self again. I still had to be dressed up, though, as I would be on stage during the reaping to congratulate the new tributes and smile at the poor people of District Seven.

Just thinking about it was exhausting enough, I thought as I turned off my cold shower, drying off, pulling on the blue satin dress my sister had cleared with my stylist.

Hanna had always had an eye for clothes, and she had long insisted that the District Seven stylist was a batty old git, so as soon as I got back in town, she had started commandeering my phone calls from my stylist and convincing him that I ought to wear things she had found for me, which he didn't really have objection to, because she did a wonderful job.

It felt strange, even at that point, to have such rich fabrics on my skin. It felt unnatural, like I was wearing someone else's clothes, despite the fact that everything I wore was perfectly fitted to me and my body. I looked down at the shoes my sister had set out for me, grateful that the heels were too ungodly high. I could walk in heels, but it was painful and made me feel very, very awkward, particularly when not in the Capitol. I couldn't bear to think of what my old classmates would say if they could see me walking up the stage in sky-high heels.

Alyson barged into my room, grinning as she hopped onto the bed.

"You look pretty," she said, and I smiled. She was forming full sentences instead of fumbling with her grammar, which is what I had been working on with her while the boys were at school.

That had been my life since I won the Games. I did the Victory Tour, I danced, I read to my brothers, and I got my niece a head start on school.

"Thank you," I said. "You look very pretty, too."

She puffed up with pride, stretching the fabric of her little blue satin dress, her light blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and her bright eyes shining. We matched quite well, actually, although her dress was more sweet than elegant, but I knew that her mother had made us match on purpose, knowing it would make me smile even when all I wanted to do on stage during the reaping was scream, cry, and run away so I could curl into a ball and remind myself that I wasn't going back, that I was still alive, that everything was going to be fine.

"I've got to get going," I whispered. "I'll be late."

"No, you have a visit," she said earnestly. "Mummy sent me to get you."

"Well, you certainly got distracted, didn't you?" I teased. "All right, I'll see you in a bit, then."

I kissed her forehead, and went downstairs. There were men in Capitol clothes waiting for me, ushering me into the study, where a very familiar man was sitting, casually waiting for me.

President Snow.

"Good afternoon, Scarlett Delannoy," he said calmly. "Have a seat."

As if he wasn't in my home.

But I sat, knowing it would be dangerous to not do what President Snow told me to do. Was this what Blight had warned me about?

"Good afternoon," I said slowly, careful to look him in the eye, to appear as sweet as confident as I always did for my Capitol appearances.

"There is no need to playact with me, Scarlett," he said casually, frowning slightly. "I've seen you in your natural habitat. Lying merely wastes time and energy, wouldn't you agree?"

I did agree, but I didn't want to say anything, because at that moment, I found myself wondering just how much of my new victor's home was bugged.

"You've been very well liked in the Capitol, Scarlett," he continued, as if I had verbally agreed with him. "Your feigned sweetness makes people find you provincially charming, and you've been much asked after."

Asked after? What on earth did that mean?

"You see," he continued, "some of our more popular victors become… oh, escorts, while they are in the Capitol in the years after they win. We haven't had a fresh victor on the schedule for some time, but you've been highly desired."

Escort? Desired?

"You want me to have sex with rich people."

"A bit crudely put," he said with a nod, "but that is essentially the point. You will be given nights off, of course. We do expect you to enjoy your time in the Capitol, and we wouldn't want you be too taxed between this and your mentoring duties."

I balled in my hands into fists in my lap, wanting so badly to punch him in the face for suggesting such a thing.

"No," I said firmly. "Absolutely not."

"I should warn you," he said casually, "that should you refuse there would be dire consequences."

I recalled what Blight had said about my loved ones reaping the pain of my decision, should I make the wrong one.

But on the same point, how could I do what President Snow was requiring of me? How could I ever look at my niece again, knowing that I had done the things President Snow was asking of me with absolute strangers, with men who disgusted me?

"I – I can't," I said softly, inwardly horrified at what I was saying. What was I condemning my family to?

"You may change your mind, once you think on it," he said casually, standing. "I'm giving you time for that luxury. The first night back you will be given a room and expected to go there. There will be consequences if you do not present yourself." He paused at the door and added, "I think you may find yourself more capable than you realize."

As soon as he was gone I let the tears leak from my eyes, aware that if the room was bugged, which it probably was, he would be made aware of my tears later, but I had to get them out of my system before I saw my family again. They couldn't know. My father was finally happy.

Once I had composed myself, I went out, ate a quick meal my father had set out for me of his special fried potatoes and my sister's applesauce and allowed my sister to tame my hair to match my dress, keeping as calm and casual as possible while thinking over what I was going to do about President Snow's demand.

I didn't have much time to think.

It was a very short amount of time before Blight and I were up on the stage with the mayor and our silly Capitol escort, awaiting the reaping.

Of course, the girl I would mentor was a classmate of mine, Charlotte Jacobsen, a snooty girl from the town who thought she owned the world. Charlotte and I had hated each other since we were six, her mother setting me up as her rival because I was top of the class. I congratulated her with as much sweetness and sincerity as I could muster, as I was already emotionally drained for the day. The boy was a couple years younger, someone named Cephalus who I recognized as being from the woods but hadn't ever actually met.

They went about saying their goodbyes in the Justice building and Blight and I went to the train to wait, discussing them.

"You know Charlotte," he said casually, as if he was telling me that it was Tuesday.

"We hate each other," I said, offering no further explanation. "It won't affect my judgment. I won't be the reason her mother buries her only child. I reckon Charlotte's arrogance can manage that all on its own."

He snorted, but he didn't scold me.

"I had a visitor," I said slowly.

"Yes, you did," he acknowledged. "And?"

"I can't," I said softly. "I just can't."

"Sure you can," he growled. "Try explaining to Alyson that you can't and see how far that gets you."

I had a retort ready, but it died on my lips as Charlotte and Cephalus joined us and we sat down for dinner on the train, an awkward sort of silence falling on the group at the table.

"So," Blight said finally, "I figure we ought to watch the reaping soon. Before we do, let's let you two ask questions so we can start getting a feel for you and what we're going to do with your strategies."

"I've got one," Charlotte said. "Can we switch mentors?"

"No," I snapped. "Next question."

Blight snorted and said, "No, you can't. Don't worry, whatever qualms you've got with Scarlett are unfounded. She'll do a good job or I'll remind her of her priorities. You doing poorly doesn't project well on her, either, remember."

Charlotte seemed pacified with this assurance for the time being, and Cephalus went off asking dozens of questions about getting sponsors, dealing with the stylists, interacting with other tributes, and strategies for the early days of the Games.

He was eager, that was certain. Charlotte hardly listened as Blight and I answered his questions. Finally, Blight recommended that they change and get washed up before we watched the reshowing of the reaping and he turned to me.

"Please tell me you've changed your mind," he said.

I hadn't honestly thought much about my own drama, and I told him so. I had been a bit preoccupied with the fact that I was going to have to attempt to mentor my enemy from certain death. The fact that Snow wanted to make me into a whore was one of the last things on my mind.

"Well, do everyone involved a favor," he said earnestly. "Change your mind."

I didn't have a lot of time to contemplate that. I didn't want to contemplate that. But at the same time, I knew that as soon as we landed in the Capitol, my nights would be at the call of President Snow, should I choose the comfort of my family over my own personal dignity. I was running out of time to make a choice I would rather not ever think about.

The pair of tributes reentered the room to view the reaping and suddenly I wanted nothing to do with any of it. I retreated to my room, saying I would watch the third showing later, but that I very much wanted a shower, and I pulled off my clothes the moment I reached my room, turning on the shower when I got to it, making sure it was cold as I let the icy drops of water run down my body. It was a stark contrast to the warm tears running down my cheeks.

Winning was supposed to be the desirable alternative to dying, but suddenly I envied Chance, Summer, Aidan, Titus… they would be immortalized in the Games they participated in, but the Games, the Capitol, couldn't hurt them anymore. Their families were safe. Sad, but safe.

Suddenly, I hated them all. Not just the Capitol, but all the other victors, especially Blight, especially Haymitch, especially Finnick, especially anyone who had shown any real kindness to me where the Games were concerned. Why hadn't they told me? Why hadn't they warned me? What hadn't Blight just let me die? Did they think it was funny that I was going through this? Had it been some sort of plan all along, making sure I lived so they could watch me suffer after the Games were done?

No, I didn't hate Finnick. He was just a baby. There was no way he was already in on their sick jokes and awful plans.

Haymitch, though, Haymitch and Blight and Chaff, they all found me so hilarious. Surely they could be hated. It was their fault. They're the ones who kept me alive. They're the ones who would pressure me to give my body to the Capitol, though what they got out of it, I wasn't sure. I would show them. I wouldn't give in. I was going to keep my dignity, and Blight and Haymitch and Chaff could just deal with it.

I went back out to watch the third showing of the reaping, glad to find that the tributes and Blight had all gone off to bed, leaving me to watch on my own. My blood was still coursing with anger, and there was no telling what I would do to Blight if I saw him before I managed to calm down. That is, if I managed to calm down. One thing my classmates in District Seven had learned quickly was that I could hold quite a long grudge indeed.


	2. Becoming Tribute: Luke

**A/N: Luke's POV**

I was sitting between Finnick and Mas and wondering what I had done.

Obviously, I had volunteered for the Hunger Games. My trainer at the Academy said I was as ready as I was going to get, and that I should go for it when I felt up to it.

Perhaps I should have waited until I was a bit older.

But Ligeia Roach had volunteered and gotten in and I wanted her on my team, I knew that much.

I had had a normal life in District Four, son of fishermen, spent my days at the sea when I wasn't at school or in training. I never thought anything exciting would ever happen to me. In fact, I figured I would be one of those volunteers who tried for several years but was always elbowed out by others. That was why I'd even volunteered at fifteen.

The boy from District One was absolutely massive and dangerous looking.

When he had volunteered, I had been just waking up, my older sister shaking me awake, she herself in her first year after eligibility.

She had volunteered four years in a row with no success. I volunteered the first time and got chosen.

I had eaten fried fish and hash browns for breakfast. It was my favorite, and my mother made it for me every reaping day. I had showered, dressed in my nicest clothes, and allowed my sister to brush my hair, which was her favorite thing to do for me on reaping day, even though it was short and I was perfectly capable of handling it myself.

Being from District Four, my own reaping was before lunch. I had lined up with my classmates, anxiously waiting to volunteer. I didn't even listen to who was called out. It never mattered. Rarely did a reaping go by without at least one volunteer for each gender in District Four.

Actually, the last time that had happened was only two years ago, when Finnick Odair had been reaped, but he'd won, so it didn't really matter.

But as soon as they announced the female, Ligeia rushed forward to volunteer. She was a pretty girl with dark curls and deep green eyes. A distant sort of cousin of hers had actually volunteered in Finnick's year, but she'd died. Obviously. Stella, her name had been.

When my turn came, I volunteered, and somehow only two other boys went for it, but I was chosen.

Finnick shook my hand, and the pair of us were led off to the Justice Building where we awaited our friends and family to say goodbye.

As my family and friends filed in and out of the room for their three minutes of goodbyes with me, I noticed a small, blonde girl playing in the hall.

Her name was Brielle Weber, the mayor's daughter, and she had an unhealthy obsession with the Games. She was nine, as everyone knew, because she had started training two years early, at seven, probably just to keep from driving her father crazy. She was too young for me to really know her, but from what I'd seen of her and what I'd heard, she was quite a spoiled little brat. She was watching Ligeia's closed door with hungry eyes, as if wishing she could have volunteered in her place.

And then we had been ushered onto the train, where we had eaten lunch, showered, changed, had dinner, and then began to watch the replay of the reaping.

There was another large boy in District six named Black. Finnick paid particular attention to District Seven, which had been the winning district the previous year with Scarlett Delannoy.

"Charlotte Jacobson," he said to Mags, referring to the girl who had been reaped. "She looks like she's Scarlett's age."

"Yes, and they've got some history," Mags commented blandly. "Did you see the way they shook hands? Looked like they were trying to break each other's bones. I'm sure there's an interesting story in there somewhere."

I hadn't noticed the nonverbal tension or exchange, but Mags had been doing this for generations. I did notice that Charlotte's eyes were a bit shifty, like she was already plotting something.

There was a dark-haired, strong-looking seventeen-year-old from District Ten named Draven, but other than that, nobody really made an impression on reaping day. It wasn't uncommon. Usually only the prettiest, strongest, and Careers made any sort of immediate impressions.

I wondered what my sister was doing. Probably sleeping, or maybe finishing up the last bit of dinner, jealous of me, but glad she could eat my helping of rolls. She loved rolls. Sometimes I would sneak half of mine to her under the table, not because I didn't want it or I wasn't hungry, but because Rebeccanne never got what she wanted if I didn't give it to her.

She was a sweet girl, but not particularly engaging. She got on fine in school, but she hadn't been exceptionally bright. She was descent-looking, but she certainly hadn't been blessed with beauty like Ligeia, just as I certainly was nothing to look at compared with Finnick Odair. I had been the child who had made my parents happiest, top of my grade, well-liked… but my sister was my world and I did everything I could to make her as happy as I possibly could manage.

She had hoped to volunteer, win the Hunger Games, and finally earn some respect from everyone who knew the both of us, but even that I had managed to get ahead of her on, despite the fact that it was completely random. We had both been randomly selected from a group of volunteers.

It wasn't as though she wouldn't be proud of me, though. Jealous, certainly, but proud. We loved each other very much, and I knew that if I won, I would buy my sister everything she ever asked for ever again, and even many things she would be too modest to ask for, like beautiful clothes or jewelry.

There were night clothes in the drawers of the train car I was sleeping in, so I pulled on a silky blue set and crawled under the covers. It was a bit surreal, curling up under such nice sheets in such nice clothes on a Capitol train, knowing I would be in the Capitol the following day. The next night I would be on a chariot in some sort of costume, being presented to all of Panem as a District Four tribute for the 67th Hunger Games. My heart raced with excitement just thinking about it.

I stared at the darkened wall of the train car, thinking about what the Capitol would look like, how different the people would be, if I would have a good costume for the chariot. My pulse was faster than I ever remembered it going before and I got up, unable to sleep, heading back out to the main car where the television was still going, replaying the reaping again. Finnick was watching it, jotting down notes. I was glad my mentor was so obviously dedicated.

"Hey," I said, sitting down beside him, finding it strange that he was not even a year older than me, but that he was my main lifeline in the world outside the arena.

"Hey," he replied. "Couldn't sleep?"

"No," I answered, "you?"

"Thought I ought to watch this again," he muttered unconvincingly. I looked down at his notes. He had nothing for District Seven, despite having watched them twice.

"Right," I said, trying to think of what that meant. "Right."

"We could work on your strategy while we're both up, if you'd like," he said, stretching. "How do you feel about being in the Games, Luke?"

How did I feel?

"Honored, of course," I said quietly. "How am I supposed to feel?"

He laughed.

"Scared out of your mind."

When his laughter died down, he pulled out a little piece of paper and started jotting things down. I saw names.

"Here's the list of people you'll want on your side at the beginning," he sighed.

Sebatien, Violet, Finley, Catriona, Ligeia, Blake, Cephalus, Charlotte, Draven. Districts One, Two, Seven, and the boys from Six and Ten. And Ligeia, of course.

"Careers will rule the pack, whether you manage to snag any of the others or not," he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Blake might join you, unless he's got some big secret. He's young. Sebatien will likely lead the pack. He's the oldest, strongest… Not horrible looking. He'll get plenty of sponsors. You do as he says until he's dead. Then you follow next in line."

"Who's next in line?" I asked nervously.

"It's tough to say before the Games start," Finnick muttered, running his finger along his notes and scribbling circles in the margin as he thought. "Maybe Finley or Catriona. You and Ligeia are bottom of the pack unless you get amazing training scores or display impressive skills within the arena itself. Basically, they'll follow who leads and the leader will be whoever they follow. Be sure not to step forward as a leader until they look to you."

I nodded. I hadn't expected to be a leader, hadn't even wanted to be a leader. I'd always been great at getting others to play well together, but never from any leading position. I could diffuse tensions, but I couldn't give orders. Not like I had seen Aidan do the year before. In that way, being the bottom of the Career pack could be a blessing.

On the other hand, I would be the first target when the pack split, when it got to that point.

I tried to think positive thoughts. Finnick was still tracing his notes with his finger, a thoughtful expression lining his face.

"Who do you think is going to win?" I said quietly.

He looked up at me, a little startled, as if he hadn't remembered I was there.

"What?"

"Who do you think is going to win?"

"Oh, wow, that's tough to say," he said, rubbing his neck thoughtfully. "Blake's young, but he's a decent choice. Probably the best odds are going to be on Sebastien. But it can depend on all sorts of things."

"Like what?" I asked, flicking the stem of a cherry across the table absently.

"Like the arena," he sighed, flexing his fingers. "I had a lake, Aidan had a river. You might not have any water at all. Will you know what to do if there's no water, Luke?"

No water? There had to be water somewhere. They couldn't just make an arena where they watched us all die of thirst. It would be over in record time.

"What do you mean by no water?" I said slowly. "Like… limited resources?"

"I don't know," Finnick laughed. "I don't make the Games. Lets' say you've got no trees for shelter. Like, I don't know, all that's there is sand for miles. What do you do?"

I didn't think such a scenario would come up, but if it did, I supposed I would be better off for thinking it through.

"Well," I said slowly, "I guess there's the sand, right? So I could burrow in it… hide myself, wait for other tributes to come along and kill them before they see me."

"Good," Finnick said, nodding. "But how do you find water?"

"There's… an oasis?"

"No."

I growled with frustration.

"How can you find water if there's no water?"

He smiled a little.

"Exactly. You need sponsors. Don't waste your energy on things you have no control over. Adjust your strategy when you do have control, and pray you interest enough people in the Capitol to earn some sponsors. That's a strategy in and of itself, right there."

I sighed. The sun was starting to make itself visible out the window.

"I'd better get some sleep," Finnick mumbled. "See you at breakfast."

After my talk with Finnick, refocusing my mind, I found it much easier to sleep as well. In fact, when I woke up later, I realized it was nearly time for breakfast, and I made my way to the others hardly sleepy at all.

Ligeia was already eating some bread, dipping it in hot chocolate, her pretty dark curls tied up in a ponytail on top of her head, yawning a little as she dunked the bread.

"Good morning, Luke," Mags said sweetly. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough, thank you," I said, sitting down beside her. "You?"

"Quite well. It seems Ligeia needs more sleep than the rest of us combined," Mags joked. Finnick came in looking fully refreshed and wonderful as always. "Sleep well, Finnick?" she asked.

"Oh, as well as usual, Mags," he said, kissing her forehead gently. "How are our lovely tributes on this fine morning?"

Ligeia let out an impatient, annoyed huff and the rest of us laughed. She turned to me and narrowed her eyes and I stopped laughing immediately.

Girls could be temperamental, and I didn't want something I said or did before the Games to get me killed in my sleep. After all, her cousin had killed an ally in their sleep, so I couldn't rule it out.

"Any advice for dealing with the stylists?" Ligeia muttered into her cup of hot chocolate.

"Let them have their way," Mags said insistently. "You want to make the stylist happy, keep them on your side. They're all chosen for a reason, and ours have done a very good job in recent years. Remember, the better stylists work their way up to places like District Four, so they know their stuff, they know the Games. Nobody just starts out in Four."

"Unless they're really, really rich," Finnick joked. "Or related to Snow."

Mags gave him what seemed to be an indulgent, grandmotherly smile, and nodded.

Ligeia sniffed, not at the fact that she had to trust in the skills of her stylist. No, I was certain she was sniffing at Finnick, just on general principle. After all, he'd killed her cousin.

Most people in District Four understood. Sure, most people avoided killing someone in their own District, but it happens, and Finnick and Stella weren't even allies, much less friends. Most people had accepted the fact that Finnick had had to kill her to survive and did not begrudge him her death, but for family it was harder. Ligeia would probably never like Finnick very much.

Finnick helped himself to a rather large breakfast, winking at me as he grabbed four pieces of toast on top of his already piled up plate. Mags chuckled at him.

"What?" he said, jokingly indignant. "It's a lot of hard work, being a mentor. Being charming all of the time burns an awful lot of calories. And you know Scarlett's eating about three times this much."

The two of them shared a laugh.

That struck me as odd, of course, because how would Finnick know Scarlett Delannoy's eating habits?

But then, he would have been at the feast when she came through on her Victory Tour. But everybody eats a lot at those. Perhaps the mentors were all closer than any of us realized.

I supposed it made sense for the mentors to befriend each other. After all, who better could understand the experience of surviving the arena than someone else who had survived the arena? I hadn't experienced it yet myself, but I knew that it was going to be difficult, possibly the death of me, and unlike anything I'd ever been trained for. Training alone was almost never enough. Would I be in that elite group soon, the ones who understood what surviving the arena was like?

I certainly hoped so. I didn't want to think about what my family would think if I died.

"Oh, there it is," Ligeia said casually, pointing to the window where we could see the glittering Capitol. We both stood, going to the window, looking out at the incredible city below us.

I could see cars on the candy-colored streets, going slowly as the streets flooded with people trying to get a glimpse of the train as it went by, waving at us, eager to see us. I waved as calmly and confidently as I could, partly for the audience, partly to not seem scared next to Ligeia who was sure to be taking in my actions and thinking of me as competition, partly for myself. I would not be scared, even though I was allowing myself to fee a bit nervous, anyway. Nervous was fine. Scared was not.

I turned back away from the window and saw Finnick watching us with a blank sort of look, taking us in, then turning to his notes, running his finger down the page, frowning slightly, then looking back at Ligeia and me. Was he thinking about my strategy? Was he weighing my charm or strength against the other competitors? How could he even weigh such a thing with so little time around me, with only a few moments on a television screen of the others?

But perhaps there was some natural ability that all the victors gained in victory on knowing about the Games, knowing what to expect, being able to read the people and the situations, knowing who would be the ones to beat and who would die quickest and who would be utterly forgettable. I hoped I would be one of the ones to beat.

But I probably wouldn't be.

I turned away from the window as the train came to a stop, grabbing one last piece of toast as I stood there, waiting for Finnick and Mags to usher us out into the sunlight, onto the Capitol platform, into the world where the rest of our lives would begin.

That is, the rest of our lives for at least one of us, but I reasoned that if one of us was going to live, while it would probably Ligeia, it wouldn't do any good to think now that it would be anyone other than me. I didn't want to give up before I'd even started.


	3. Fooling Around: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

I watched Ligeia and Luke going off to their stylists with a sigh. Minna would take good care of Luke, which was better than I could say about myself. What would I be able to do for the boy? He may have volunteered, but from the notes slipped to me by his trainer, he probably wasn't half as ready as Ligeia, who was a deadly machine. How was I supposed to keep him alive? How could I convince sponsors to have interest in him, to believe in him, if I didn't have interest in him or believe in him?

Mags watched them go off and said, "Well, she's a fighter, but that seems to run in her family. Pretty girl, too. That–"

"Also runs in her family, yeah," I sighed. "Luke's descent, but nobody's going to notice him next to her. He's utterly forgettable."

She nodded.

"Let's go see some of the others."

Without my even noticing, we found ourselves on the seventh floor, greeting Scarlett and Blight, who would have arrived about an hour earlier, sitting awkwardly on the couches, frowning at the floor before them, not looking at each other, not talking… merely scowling at the unoffending carpet.

"Hey," I said jovially, trying to break the tension in the room. "How was your spring?"

Scarlett glared at me and said, "Fine."

Then she looked back down at the floor.

"Right," I muttered slowly. "Blight, how are you? Feeling good about your tributes this year?"

"They're fine," Blight said roughly. "And I'm agitated."

"Well, at least someone's being honest," Mags muttered, going over to the table to grab an orange. "How's Alyson, Scarlett?"

Blight's scowl deepened, but Scarlett's face looked like a cloud that had been over it moved along swiftly, brightening instantly.

"She's good," she sighed. "She likes that she can afford new dresses. She has her mother's fashion sense."

I smiled at that.

"She's a sweet thing," I said, stretching and letting my arm rest on the back of the sofa, behind Scarlett's shoulders. She twitched a little but didn't move away, but I wondered what the twitching was for.

I had talked a bit on the phone with Alyson a few times, trying to get ahold of Scarlett, and Alyson always insisted that she talk to me whenever I called, calling me her "special friend". Even though it was a bit far off in my future, if I had a daughter, I'd want her to be like that.

It was dangerous to have children, though, as a victor. It was almost a guarantee that your child would be reaped, and then what? In District Four, perhaps, someone would volunteer, but there was no guarantee of that. After all, look at me.

But I wasn't even sixteen yet. It was far too soon to be thinking about things like marriage.

"I have to ask," Mags said, sitting down beside Blight, "what's the deal with Charlotte?"

Scarlett snorted.

"She's a mindless floozy and her mother's an over-ambitious cow."

Even Blight laughed at that one. Scarlett didn't laugh, though. She groaned dramatically and said, "You don't understand! This woman pitted us against each other when we were six years old! We never had any chance to do anything but hate each other! And all my life, all through school it was always 'Scarlett and Charlotte' and 'Charlotte and Scarlett' and 'Look how smart these two are' and 'They're fighting for top of the class' and then I won the Games and everyone forgot about her and the cow probably rigged it so that she could get attention too."

If that had been possible, I wouldn't have doubted it, based on the proud, competitive look in Charlotte's eyes as she had taken the stage beside Scarlett, but as Charlotte hadn't been a volunteer, had been literally drawn out of a hat, it seemed rather unlikely.

"I don't want to talk about her," Scarlett said, pouting a little. "Tell me about your pair, Finnick. What do you think of Luke and Ligeia this year?"

"Ligeia is deadly," I said instantly, "and Luke is probably a dead man."

"Oh, have a bit of faith," Mags insisted. "Just because his trainer didn't gush doesn't mean he's hopeless. Ligeia was bound to have gotten more attention in training for her looks alone. The trainer was a man, like any other, and susceptible to such things. And she is, after all, the cousin of a very deadly former tribute."

"Is she?" Scarlett asked, frowning. "Who?"

"Stella," I said softly, sighing. "She looks so much like her it's going to give me nightmares, I just know it."

Scarlett knew about Stella, of course, about me killing Stella, but she didn't know, I was sure, the fact that Stella still visited me often at night, haunting my dreams with her vengeful face.

"Oh," Scarlett said coarsely. "That's the girl you let bleed out on the beach, yeah? She was awful."

I snorted.

"Yeah, she was, but I feel bad about it now."

"You didn't at the time," Blight pointed out, stretching absently on the couch. "You said in your interview that she deserved to die that way."

He was right, I had said that. And I had meant it. But maybe I had been wrong. Did anyone deserve to die like that? Was it her fault that she had been raised to think that way, to treat people that way, to win the Games?

Of course not. She was just better at it than most people I knew. It wasn't her fault.

"I've gained more perspective. I was just a kid."

"You're still just a kid," Scarlett said, rolling her eyes. "Hey, is the training room open, do you think?"

"Absolutely," Blight said. "You two should go down there and blow off steam. I need to talk to Mags."

I got the feeling that we were being brushed off, like a father telling his children to go play while the adults had an adult conversation, but I wanted to throw things, so I didn't complain.

We made our way down the familiar pathways to the training room, only to find that we weren't alone. Ronan of District Five was already throwing knives. Gloss and Cashmere, brother and sister of District One, were doing some basic fencing with practice swords. I noticed Cashmere glare at Scarlett as we entered, but Scarlett merely stuck out her tongue and Ronan waved happily to me as we came in. He was an all right sort of guy, but throwing knives beside him was a bit intimidating because he was so good at it, even after years of mentoring.

I grabbed a rack of knives and set up next to Scarlett, who had wheeled over a variety of axes and hatchets, some meant to be thrown, others a bit large for that express purpose, but she seemed intent upon it. She also had a few knives, but she grabbed them from my rack, obviously not interested in throwing a large string of knives. I realized after a moment that she intended them as her warm-up.

Ronan tossed a knife, hitting the edge of the bulls-eye. Mine was close to the bulls-eye, but not even remotely as close as I would have liked. Scarlett picked up a knife and tossed it lazily, hitting the bulls-eye right in the center. I raised my eyebrows as she picked up another knife, then hit another target, a little further away, in the same spot. Satisfied, I suppose, that she was warmed up, Scarlett picked up a hatchet and hit an even further target, then picked up one of the throwing axes and did the same, then a larger axe which was a bit bigger than the hatchet to the same result… The other mentors had stopped to watch her, eyes wide with surprise.

Once she became less of a novelty, she continued to throw the axes, and I started throwing knives again, although feeling more inferior than usual between her and Ronan.

"I wish you would teach me how to throw like that," I muttered, envious.

"Like what?" she asked, tossing another chopping axe for a perfect bulls-eye on the furthest line of targets like she was tossing a pebble into a lake.

"Like it's the easiest thing you've ever done," I said with a sigh.

Scarlett laughed.

"It's because I've been doing this since I could walk. Some of it's practice, some of it's skill. I've just always been able to do this."

I shook my head, amused and amazed, but I should have known. Scarlett was just blessed with all the abilities required of a Hunger Games victor. She was attractive, she was a good actress, she could find food, she could kill, she could hide. Of course, if she didn't get some skilled tributes and translate her knowledge and skill into proper mentoring, she would probably be a mentor for the rest of her natural life. Although the same could be said of me.

The main difference was that I was likely to receive well-trained, well-prepared individuals. She was not. She herself was not a trained individual, though she had been quite prepared. I wondered why all parents didn't pass along survival skills to their children, just in case they were reaped, even if they couldn't send them to academies with special trainers for that very purpose. Perhaps people thought if they stuck their heads in the sand, maybe, just maybe their child wouldn't be reaped.

But they weren't doing anyone any favors, except the other tributes, who didn't mind an easy target.

"So, what's it like, being seventeen?" I asked casually, tossing another knife, this time making it a bit closer to the bulls-eye. "Got a boyfriend yet?"

She laughed.

"Why, jealous, Odair?" she said with a smirk and a wink.

If I was being honest with myself, I thought I would be a bit jealous of any guy she dated, if only because I wouldn't have her full attention anymore. She would be the only other mentor close to my age in our little band of victors, possibly for a long time, and if she had a boyfriend, we probably wouldn't be as close.

"Oh, naturally," I said sarcastically as I could muster. "Let me guess, tall, dark, handsome?"

"Well, you've described the man in my life perfectly, Finnick," she said with a snort. I frowned at her, looking up and dropping the knife in my hand.

She had someone?

"My _father_," she sighed, exasperated at my shocked expression. "That's a perfect description of my father. He's the only man in my life and I sincerely hope it stays that way for quite some time."

The way she said that, with agitation, it seemed as if something was wrong. Perhaps there was some boy giving her trouble in District Seven, following her around, professing his affections. It wouldn't be something unheard of, especially with a pretty young victor. But Scarlett wasn't the sort to take kindly to such things, unlike most girls her age. Whoever he was, I was surprised she hadn't chopped off his hand, at the least.

"What about you, Finnick?" she continued sardonically. "No special girls in your life?"

"No," I said with a laugh. "I'm not even sixteen."

"That's nice," she growled under her breath, and it seemed an odd thing to say, and something that she hadn't necessarily wanted me to hear.

"I will be soon," I said, as if not hearing her. "Next week, actually. Any advice?"

She gave no advice, but she frowned deeply, not trying to hide her discomfort with the fact that I was turning sixteen. What was so bad about it? Perhaps her own sixteenth birthday had been not very nice, but that had been almost a year before she had been reaped. It's not like the memory would have been associated with the Games at all.

But then, I reasoned, there was no decree that all of a victor's worst memories must be Games-related. I knew in several cases victors had lost family members, like Gloss and Cashmere, who had lost their little sister. Haymitch, despite being in his thirties, was all alone in the world. Those must have been sad memories, whatever they were.

We didn't get much information about victor's families in the districts. This was all information I had picked up in the Capitol, as a mentor. We heard about them while they were tributes in the Games, then saw a bit on the Victory Tour, but then we only saw the parents if the victor did something important, like get married. Not very many victors got married. It wasn't surprising. Their children were almost always reaped, and most marriages resulted in at least one child.

I tried to picture Scarlett as a mother, but the thought seemed almost as ridiculous as Haymitch as a father. Maybe they weren't meant to have families. I mean, I knew Scarlett was brilliant with Alyson, but actually having and raising her own child… That seemed to be beyond the limits of her capacity for tenderness and compassion. But perhaps I was underestimating her because I knew of the stark contrast between her on-screen personality and her true self.

We continued to throw, and Lyme, from District Two came down, situating herself on the other side of Scarlett.

"Hello," she said. "Good to see you, Finnick."

Lyme was an incredible specimen of strength and discipline, still able to hit any target with her spear from nearly any point in the training facility, which was better than even Ronan with his knives, although Scarlett could probably match her with axes.

"And you, Lyme," I said. "Good year?"

"As well as usually, thank you," she sighed. I noticed that she barely looked at Scarlett, which I thought odd, but I realized they hadn't been introduced.

"Oh, Lyme, have you met Scarlett?"

She shook her head, holding out her hand to the skeptical Scarlett.

"Pleasure to meet you," she said kindly to Scarlett.

"Likewise," Scarlett replied, pulling her hand away, everything about her part in the interaction saying she found no pleasure in it at all.

I had no problems with Lyme, despite the fact that she was District Two. She had worked with me quite a lot the previous year, working out gifts for Anya and Aidan and the other Careers.

"How's Luke?" she asked.

"Good enough, I imagine," I said. "What do you think about Catriona?"

"Similar to Anya, I expect," she said. Scarlett just ignored us, continuing to toss axes and knives.

"What do you think about Sebastien, Gloss?" Lyme called to the District One male, who was a few years older than myself.

"He's probably going to win," Gloss said, tossing a spear leisurely. "Tell Ligeia to stay out of the way if she doesn't want a painful death, Finnick."

I gritted my teeth. Gloss made me want to punch him in the face, most of the time.

"She looks a lot like Stella," Lyme said casually. "That was the first thing that hit me when I saw the reaping in your district.

"Cousins," I said without further explanation.

"Ah," Lyme muttered, grabbing a spear. "Do you think she's as deadly?"

"Probably," I sighed. "From what her trainer tells us, she's possibly even better than her cousin. She got glowing reviews. Doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous."

"No, it never does," Scarlett muttered bitterly.

What was her problem?

"Think she'll be a better ally than Stella was?" Cashmere called. "I don't want to tell Violet that she's not allowed to sleep at all."

I was fairly certain that Ligeia wouldn't do something so stupid, or at least, wouldn't get away with it, after what Stella had done, but I didn't mind having Cashmere on edge, so I said, "You know, I don't really know. You should talk to Mags about that, if you think it's a legitimate concern. I'm dealing with Luke, not Ligeia. I don't think she would work with me if her life depended on it."

Lyme, Ronan, and Scarlett laughed darkly, and Cashmere nodded, satisfied with my response. I went back to watching Scarlett throw, thinking about her behavior. I didn't know her well enough to know exactly what normal behavior was for her, but I certainly knew that the way we found her and Blight that afternoon hadn't be normal in the slightest. In my experiences with her, as well, her behavior wasn't so typically… antisocial. She was becoming a bit more like Haymitch in all the ways that weren't good. It was a strange thing to say about someone I hardly knew, but I was worried about her.

We threw for about two hours, and my arms grew tired long before Scarlett's, who seemed to be spurred on by some sort of fury. Lyme and I took a break, sitting to the side, watching Ronan and Scarlett go, never seeming to run out of energy.

"She's incredible," Lyme muttered. "It's a shame."

I frowned.

"What is?"

Lyme looked at me, confused for a moment, but then she smoothed out her expressions.

"She'll tell you when she's ready to," Lyme said slowly, but there was more than that. There was something she almost seemed to keeping from me, and the way she said it didn't seem like it was just some story of Scarlett's.

But Lyme hadn't met Scarlett before that day. How was it that she knew something Scarlett had yet to tell me when she hadn't even met her? And why wouldn't she just tell me what it was? Was it the answer to Scarlett's odd behavior toward Blight, and others, but mostly Blight?

But I didn't have too long to dwell on it, because we had to get cleaned up and changed for the chariot presentation that evening, and women took longer at that sort of thing, so I walked with Scarlett back to the seventh floor, where Mags and Blight were still talking urgently about something, which they quickly cut off when we entered.

Something very strange was going on, and I wanted to know what it was.

**A/N: THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO **_**mcgonagiggles**_**, who added it to their alerts. THANK YOU **_**MCGONAGIGGLES**_**, your attention has been noted, appreciated, and also inspired me to finish up the end of this chapter. I hope you continue to enjoy this story, and the rest of the series, when they come along.**

**-J**


	4. Price: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

The cool night air of the Capitol closed around me as I stood with Blight, trying to be attentive to Charlotte and Cephalus, wanting to be anywhere but the Capitol that night. But I had to be there. I was the only living District Seven female victor. The only one. Charlotte would have nobody else but Blight.

Well, Blight had mentored me to a win, so he wasn't too shabby, was he?

But that wasn't the point. It was my job. Despite my distaste for Charlotte, she needed me, and whatever was going on in my personal life, I owed it to her to give her my full attention. And it was better, anyway, than thinking about Snow's ultimatum.

Charlotte was glaring daggers at me, but I figured that was probably her newest hobby, with how much of her time she spent doing it. What on earth she would do to occupy her time in the Games I didn't know… probably glare at leaves while her crazed and hungry mind hallucinated that they were me.

Was it bad that the thought of her hallucinating with hunger gave me a warm, happy feeling in my stomach? Probably.

But I couldn't be bothered with her problems. I had my own.

I watched Charlotte drag herself along in her ridiculous heels, clearly never having worn a pair before in her life, obviously not knowing how to walk in the dress the stylist had given her, or rather, the tree outfit. Always trees, District Seven, hardly ever any originality. I had to work very hard not to roll my eyes.

"Ready?" Blight asked Cephalus, who was fiddling with some leaves dangling off his wrist.

"Do I look ridiculous?" he asked.

"No more ridiculous than Charlotte," I replied with a snort, which earned me a disapproving look from Blight, but I didn't care. "Just get on your chariot, the pair of you. They're not likely to even notice how absurd you look compared with the cows up in District Ten."

I wasn't being unnecessarily rude. The poor tributes of District Ten were actually dressed as cattle, as if such a thing was ever a good idea. Truly, worse than trees. There was just no way to make cattle look flattering or interesting or attractive.

But then, maybe it would be to their credit, if they won, not to look attractive. I wished so much that I could go back in time and make myself wear a far more ridiculous costume than even the cows. Maybe then I could have avoided the whole mess I found myself in. But I probably would have lost, so I couldn't say for sure which would be better.

The boy from District Ten was watching me, I realized, as I took in the absurd costumes. Without thinking about it, probably because I was so angry, I stuck my tongue out at him, and he just suppressed a grin, watching me, winking.

_Winking?_

Who was this boy that had the audacity to wink at me?

I tried to think back to what I knew about him as I looked away. District Ten… Draven, Draven Dupre, seventeen. I looked back. He was strong, probably from working with cattle, and his dark hair and tanned skin made me remember the description Finnick had given me that morning of the sort of boy he thought I'd be interested in. Tall, dark, and handsome.

But what did it matter who I found handsome? My life was being decided for me by the Capitol. Even if I liked this boy, I couldn't. I couldn't allow him close to me. He would be in danger.

Besides, he was likely to be dead in a few days, anyway. Nothing to worry about.

I ignored Draven Dupre, turning back to Charlotte, who was glaring at me still. But she was always glaring at me.

"They'll be starting any moment now," Blight said, frowning at the leading chariot, which the District One tributes were already climbing into. "You'd best be getting in. It's going to go rather fast once things get started."

Cephalus and Charlotte climbed up into the chariot and I felt oddly like I was watching from a distance.

"All right, there they go," Blight said. "Chins up."

I watched the chariots heading out of the door, one by one, the silly costumed tributes heading out to be received by the Capitol and Blight and I turned to the screens to get the view Panem was getting.

"Did I look that absurd?" I asked Blight, looking up at the screen with a frown.

"No," said Finnick's voice from behind me. "You looked regal and spectacular."

I snorted.

"Says the boy who was practically naked," I teased, and he shrugged.

"Yes, well, Stella and I may have been dressed as prostitutes, but I survived, and that's the important thing."

My stomach churned at his words and I grimaced.

"Excuse me," I muttered, turning away to find someone, anyone, who wasn't standing around me in that moment.

"Hey," said a mildly familiar voice. "How are you feeling?"

It was Lyme, the woman from District Two, and there was a surprising amount of softness in her voice. This seemed so out of place that I was momentarily confused but then I looked in her eyes and I realized: she knew. She could have been quite a beauty in her youth. Perhaps many years ago she had been in my place.

"Nauseous," I admitted.

She nodded slowly.

"Yes, that's common," she said, watching the screen out of the corner of her eye, apparently trying to make our talk like a simple discussion of the chariots, of the Games. If only. "Best to grit your teeth and bare it. It's all over soon enough."

I shook my head.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can, and you really need to," she said. "This is your duty now. It's a part of winning for many of us, so we simply do our job for the Capitol."

I shook my head again. She really couldn't expect me to just lie there and allow some strange man to violate me because the Capitol thought it was their right to make money at my expense. And Blight… I thought Blight actually cared about me, even just a little. After all, he had kept me alive, he had led me through the ins and outs of being a victor, he had even played with Alyson, despite the fact that she dressed him up in a tiara of twigs and made him have a tea party with her.

So why had everybody turned on me? Why were they trying to make me go so clearly against my conscience? I was saved from having to excuse myself from Lyme when her District partner motioned her over for the speech of President Snow.

"You okay?" Finnick whispered in my ear. "You're jumpy."

"Fine," I said. "I'm just tired."

"Oh," he said, clearly not believing me. "Try to get some sleep tonight, all right? It's going to be a busy few weeks. Don't want you passing out on me or something."

"Yeah," I muttered.

I followed Blight and Charlotte and Cephalus upstairs to the seventh floor, barely noticing the elevator or the other people in it with me. As soon as we got to our floor, I said I was tired and headed to my room, where I saw that an Avox had left a note on the bed for me, with a single, long-stemmed white rose on the bed beside it. I barely looked at the note, seeing that it told me the time and place I was expected to meet some Capitol man named Tryphon James. Anger filled me and I took the piece of paper, ripping it into as many pieces as I could manage before tossing them all angrily to the side.

I tore my clothes off angrily, stomping over to the shower, letting the cold water run along my body.

I wasn't going.

I wasn't.

My family would be able to handle less food. We were tough. My father had managed to keep us going without my mother. My sister and brother-in-law could help him. They would be fine. I didn't need to become a whore for them to be okay. They wouldn't want me to. It shouldn't be even a question. There was nothing to feel guilty about.

When I finally went back out into my room, the white rose was still lying there, strangely more fragrant than a flower ought to have been. I didn't want it in my room. I didn't want it on my bed. It was like a reminder that somewhere in the building there was a Capitol man waiting for me, probably naked on a bed, wondering why I was late. I wondered briefly how long he would wait before deciding I wasn't coming.

On an impulse of anger I took the rose and put it in the shower, turning on the water and watching the harsh jets peel off the petals and suck them down the drain. Then I stuffed the stem down after the petals.

Somehow I had to wonder if Snow had seen that, or someone working for him, and if they were going to report it back to him. Perhaps that should have bothered me, outraged me, even made my skin crawl. After all, I was in little more than my skin and actually in my shower, but somehow I almost expected such a breach of my privacy after everything else he expected me to be willing to do for the Capitol.

My face contorted in anger, I turned and went back to my room, searching the drawers for some night clothes, finding the plainest thing available (for most of the modest choices from the year before had been replaced for racier options, probably for the benefit of my intended 'clients') and pulling it on. It was a mid-thigh white silk nightgown. I crawled into bed, shivering a little from the chill of the shower and the chill in my blood, dreading the morning, but possibly the worst part about it was that the scent of the rose still lingered on the sheets.

I tossed and turned for hours before I finally found sleep, more because my body couldn't stay awake any more than because I'd reached any sort of peaceful state. In fact I was riddled with nightmares that night, mostly of Alyson as an animated corpse looking at my naked body and saying, "You're pretty. You killed me."

She said it over and over, and in my dream I cried and screamed and begged her to leave me alone, but she just came closer and closer and there was nothing I could do to make her go away, no matter what I tried. Someone was shaking me, and I screamed, thinking it was more corpses but when my eyes shot open I saw the sad face of Blight hovering over me.

"You didn't go," he said in a hollow voice. "Why didn't you just go, Scarlett?"

"I c-c-couldn't," I sobbed, shivering in the thin nightgown. "I couldn't do it, Blight. I'd never forgive myself."

He looked so sad that I forgot that I was angry with him, that I was blaming him for everything. He sat on the bed and wrapped his arms around me.

"Scarlett, I'm so, so sorry."

Sorry? Sorry for what, for telling me I should make myself a whore? For letting them try to do this to me? No, none of that was right, but he seemed very upset. And then I realized that some of the tears leaking onto my skin weren't my own, but that Blight was crying and his tears were falling onto my shoulder, rolling down my chest. No, there was something else, something big. Something bigger than… something more than… what had happened while I had been sleeping not peacefully? What had I missed in those… hours? Minutes?

He pressed another Capitol note into my hand and both of our hands were shaking.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice quivering, knowing what it must be, but not wanting it to be true. So I told myself it couldn't be.

"Read it," he said gruffly, hastily wiping his eyes and saying, "and I'll take care of the tributes today. You'll probably want some sleep. Let me know if you want to talk."

As soon as he left the room I turned the note over in my hand, scared to see what words were held inside of it. Finally, unable to take the suspense, she opened the note with shaky hand and read:

_Scarlett,_

_I was disappointed that you disregarded my warnings. I thought you were smarter than that. Your family had a terrible accident yesterday, a fire… No survivors. It would be a shame if your friend, what was her name, Trish, would befall a similar fate. District Seven can be such a dangerous place._

_You will be given the night off to collect your thoughts. On the second night after training you will be expected to heed the directions left for you and go to the designated room._

_-CS_

I felt sick to my stomach.

My family, my whole family, were dead, and it was all my fault. Blight had warned me. I had been stubborn. I hadn't listened. I hadn't wanted to believe that the Capitol could be so cruel, so harsh.

I don't know why I was so surprised. After all, this was the same Capitol that made twenty-four children fight to the death every summer and called it a game. We were all just pawns in their game, and that was all we would ever be. Even my father, one of the most skilled men in all of Panem, was disposable. How much was my body worth, that Snow was willing to kill someone so valuable?

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach, wondering if my father knew as the house went up in flames, as he watched his children, his granddaughter burn, that it was all my fault. I wondered if he knew as his own skin turned to ash that if I had only decided to just do as the president asked, shameful though it was, that he would have lived, that they would have all lived. I leaned over the bowl of the Capitol toilet and vomited violently.

Dead.

They were all dead.

And if I didn't go to sleep with this Capitol man in two nights, despite my best efforts, Trish would be dead too.

But… if I just let her go, then wouldn't they have to leave me alone? There was nobody else that I cared about enough for them to use against me. I could be like Haymitch, alone and bitter and left more or less to my own devices as long as I continued to show up for mentoring. And really, they didn't even need me for that. They had Blight.

But I couldn't just let them kill Trish. Because what if they killed her family? And… and what if they didn't? Would her mother, her sister understand that it was my fault, my selfishness that caused them the loss of their daughter? And then every year I spent in District Seven I wouldn't be able to face them…

District Seven. I was going to have to go back to District Seven where there was… what? A new house for me to replace the one that burned down? I would live by myself, Blight and Mathias, who was a very old man who had won the 14th Games, would live with me in the Victor's Village. That was all I still had, and I would see the victors as they came through on Victory Tours, and then practice my dancing, which was the only thing that I really did anymore.

But I didn't want to dance anymore. I didn't want to read or dance or do anything I had ever enjoyed, except perhaps throwing axes and hatchets, because I wanted practice in case I ever got a chance to throw one at Snow's head.

When my stomach had been emptied and I retched emptily a few more times I cleaned up my face and went out to pull on some clothes from the drawers that the stylists had designed for me over the year. There was a pretty green sundress that looked like light through the leaves of the trees, and I was painfully reminded of home, wanting to rush back to the toilet and retch some more, although I knew there was nothing to bring up anymore. I pushed it aside and pulled out a black strapless dress that was made of a light material and didn't make me want to vomit.

With a deep breath, I pulled my hair into a bun on top of my head and pulled my face into a sunny smile that I had mastered when I was trying to become the expert of "sweet" for my Games persona, which had become my Capitol persona. It was the only mask I knew of that could outlast my pain inside. With both my hair and my smile in place, I went out to breakfast.

"Morning," I said, sitting down across from Charlotte. "Have you covered training with them, Blight?"

He gave me a small questioning look before nodding and saying, "I thought you said you wanted to sleep in today, Scarlett. Not feeling well, you said."

"I'm feeling better," I lied. "No sense lying about when there's work to be done."

"Would you like some toast?" Cephalus asked kindly. "Makes me feel better when I'm sick."

There was something about the way he said it that made me think of Chance and Alyson and I suddenly had the urge to vomit again.

"No, thank you," I said softly, shaking my head. "I'm not particularly hungry."

I did pour a bit of water into a glass and sipped on it slowly, watching Charlotte and Cephalus eating, wondering why the world hadn't fallen apart around me yet, why reality still went on like normal. But if reality could continue, so could I.


	5. Training: Luke

**A/N: Luke's POV**

Ligeia and I went down for training on the first day, listening to the talk of the Capitol woman about what we should do, what stations we ought to pay attention to, and the rules everybody was aware of. Some of the younger kids, some of the kids from outlying Districts, were absolutely shaking with terror already. It didn't bode well for their chances in the Games if they were so easily intimidated by the skill of six teenagers with swords, knives, and spears.

Sebastien was impressive. And Ligeia and Sebastien quickly established a close bond over their knives. It was also quickly established that I would be the weak link in the Career pack, but they kept me, whether for Ligeia's sake or for my mentor, who was widely regarded as one of the more promising mentors.

By lunch Ligeia suggested to Sebastien, as Mags had told her, that we invite Blake from District Six into our fold, and so they courted him at lunch, and the fourteen-year-old, who had proven himself to be incredible with a sword and a bow joined us willingly, eagerly even. Maybe he thought this would increase his chances of staying alive.

I had had a similar thought about myself, but being a weak link amongst the Careers could ensure that I was the first killed. Similarly, being the greatest among the Careers could make Sebastien the first target, someone the other Careers would rally to get rid of before divvying off and doing away with each other.

I tried to push the thought out of my mind that afternoon as I tried to gain some camaraderie with Finley, the eighteen-year-old from District Two.

"Spears," he said. "Spears, javelins… anything I can throw. I'm not stupid or arrogant enough to think I could kill all twenty-three in close range."

We were watching Sebastien oil up to wrestle a Capitol sparring partner. I nodded.

"Knives for me," I said. "Throwing or in close quarters, it doesn't really matter. But I like knives. Who do you think you'll target for your first kill?"

Finley's lips curled into a smile and he pointed at the boy from District Twelve, who was attempting to determine which berries the edible plants instructor was holding out to him were poisonous.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"No idea," Finley said, attempting to tie the knot we had just been shown.

"What's his name?"

"No idea."

"Well, why do you want to kill him?"

Finley shrugged a bit, still focusing on the knot.

"He looks more scared than I am. It'll make it easier to put him out of his element, once I figure out what that is. Besides, Twelve doesn't usually last very long. Should be nice and easy to pick off. Who do you have in mind?"

I looked around the training center.

"You know, I hadn't really thought about it," I admitted, finishing the simple knot and moving on to the next one. "I guess I'll know when the time comes, whoever stumbles across my path first."

He laughed a little and then looked over at my knot and frowned, realizing I was already three knots ahead of him and nearly onto my fourth.

"Why are you even at this station?" he said with a bit of a pout. "You already know how to do every knot at the station."

"Probably," I conceded with a laugh. "I needed a bit of a break from all of the strenuous activity. I don't know how Sebastien can just go from one combat station to another like he's trying on clothes."

Finley shook his head again, snorting.

"Did Finnick tell you to follow Sebastien's lead too? Brutus made it sound like I'd die without him, as if I were some sort of weakling. I'm almost his size, I'm almost his age, and hitting one edge or the other of the bull's-eye when throwing knives doesn't make a difference. But Lyme gave the same speech to Catriona. Do you know if Mags said the same thing to Ligeia?"

"Honestly, I don't know," I sighed. "It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't work out between them who the leader would be and make the others aware of it, but Ligeia's tough. It also wouldn't surprise me if Mags was grooming her to take over when Sebastien bites it. If he bites it," I added quickly, noticing the pondering expression on Finley's face as he turned to consider Ligeia, who was throwing knives like they were pebbles.

"What, not one for rooting with the odds?" he said sourly after a long silence.

I shrugged.

"It's hard to say that when there aren't even odds yet," I reasoned. "We don't have training scores. We haven't done interviews. For all we know Sebastien could come up with a six and flop his interview, and then he'd be as likely to win as that primary target of yours from Twelve."

Finley snorted.

"That's a bit of a stretch. But I get your point. Until we know the scores he's as likely to win as any other Career or some of the stronger guys," he said, considering. "Like Blake, or that boy from Ten… What's his name?"

"Draven," I said, recalling Finnick's advice about trying to pull him into the alliance. "Finnick thinks he's going to be good. Said to try to convince him to join the alliance."

Finley frowned.

"Hmm, Brutus didn't mention him, but I could ask. Maybe he just didn't think about it." He fumbled with the knot he was working on a bit for a moment before saying, "Sometimes I think the ones like Brutus and Lyme have been mentoring too long, too stuck in the way things have been to think outside of the box. It's why there haven't been as many Career wins in the recent past as there used to be."

I hadn't thought about it, the numbers or the odds or the methods. Things had been done the way they were for so long that I hadn't thought to question that they might be done in some better way. Finnick was the young, fresh blood in the Career mentoring area, and he seemed to make his friends outside of the Careers, apart from Mags. It made sense that he might look at things a little differently.

"Looks like Catriona's making friends with him too," Finley said, nodding to where Catriona and Draven were talking in low tones, making a show of looking at edible and poisonous plants but really just talking rapidly about something, looking around at the others. We frowned.

"Are you sure Brutus didn't mention him to you?" I said.

"Positive," Finley muttered. "Look, now he's talking to Charlotte… and Maggie… and Daisy… I think they're talking to him because they think he's attractive. I don't think all of those girls' mentors would have specified to chat him up."

It seemed a reasonable assumption. I could recognize that Draven was quite good-looking.

After training I took a shower and washed all of the sweat from the day off my body. Some of what I did, like making knots with Finley, was more of a breather to discuss with my allies, but I had gotten in plenty of physical activity as well.

Once I had thrown on fresh clothes I headed out for dinner, but paused, hearing voices speaking in low, secretive tones. I strained my ears to hear Mags and Finnick whispering in the main area.

" – telling you, something is really wrong with her. I know she's not the most pleasant person on earth, but she's been a lot more irritable than normal, and Lyme seems to know something but she wouldn't tell me. I don't understand what's wrong. I've been wracking my brains since I realized something was off, but nothing is coming to me."

"Don't worry about it too much, Finnick. Don't forget that victors are often paranoid. Haven't you thought maybe you're reading more into this than is actually there?"

"Of course I've thought that, Mags, I've heard about Haymitch taking knives to sleep. I mean, I've almost done it myself a few times. But I don't think this is what's going on here. I think she's keeping something from me. I think something is wrong and Scarlett's not telling me what it is and that bothers me."

"But should it? I mean, you barely know the girl."

"Well, true, but–"

"Tell me something, Finnick, would you be bothered if Chaff or Haymitch didn't tell you something going on in their lives?"

"Of course not."

"So what makes Scarlett any different?"

"I – I don't know, Mags, it's just that we seemed like we were in so much the same place, like we were kindred spirits and–"

"You're buying into Capitol gossip, Finnick. Contrary to what it may seem, even victors aren't all instantly closer than family. We have to build our friendships just like anybody else. Sure, we have an intensely bonding experience, but Blight and I didn't instantly start sharing secrets the moment he became a mentor."

"I guess you're right, but I'm worried about her, Mags."

"You'd be a bad person if you weren't," Mags said with a small chuckle. "We're all just shells of what we could have been if our lives had gone differently. Some of us brought this on ourselves, but you and Scarlett, you didn't have a choice in the matter and I think that probably affects you both even more."

I walked back down the hall a ways, hearing more than enough, and walked back out in a much louder fashion so that they were aware someone was coming. As I expected, their voices fell silent as I drew closer and they looked up at me.

"I hope you're not going to be that loud in the arena," Finnick joked, a smile I was sure hadn't been there moments ago lighting up his handsome features. "How are you feeling? Ready for more training yet?"

I simply shrugged. Training had been a part of my life so long that even knowing the pressure of the score and the Games was coming I couldn't bring myself to get nervous about it.

I didn't know much about what I had overheard, but I could tell that Finnick was concerned about Scarlett's behavior. I could tell that he was very, very concerned about her, actually, even though Mags told him there was nothing to worry about. I hadn't seen very much of her since I was taken to the Capitol, so I wouldn't know if Mags was right or wrong, but something Mags had said really hit me: _We're all just shells of what we could have been_.

For some reason, I had never really thought about what happened after the arena, and how the arena affected that. What had Mags seen? How had that changed her? I knew about Finnick, about his Games and killing Stella, killing Alana, watching Lila die as her blood literally boiled in her body. Apparently several victors even slept with knives… Did Mags? Would I, if I won? Knives were certainly my preferred weapon, but would I have the types of experiences that would cause such behavior?

For the first time I began to think about who I really might have to kill, who might try to kill me. I didn't think Finley would go for me, at least not right away. He liked easy targets, and as a Career, I was already a more difficult target than many of the other tributes. However it didn't escape my mind that if he and I were still alive when it came time for the Careers to splinter off, I would likely be his first choice for a victim within the Careers.

And Ligeia… would Ligeia kill me? I wouldn't put it past her. I hadn't forgotten her cousin, driven to murdering her fellow Careers in their sleep by her paranoia and determination.

The second day of training, the confident tributes were more confident and the scared tributes were even more scared. I was starting to get more and more suspicious of Draven, who had talked to literally every female tribute in the room, and not a single male. He was certainly attractive, and I wasn't sure what game he was playing, but it was clear there was an agenda in there. I decided to try to talk to him.

"Hey," I said, joining him at traps. "My name's Luke."

"Hey," he said, not really looking at me. "Draven."

"District Ten, right?" I asked, knowing perfectly well where he was from.

"Yeah," he said. I tried to figure out what sort of a trap he was making with his rope. Perhaps something that would catch the prey by an ankle when hung from a tree? I eyed the rope with curiosity and he seemed to notice this when he finished tying the rope because he looked at me and smiled a little.

"This is called a lasso," he said with confidence. "We use them with the cattle in Ten. I can control a much larger animal than myself with this thing. I'll show you."

He took the rope, spinning it so that the round, open part spun over his head in a graceful way, then flicking his wrist so that the top of the rope headed out toward the dummies we used for target practice, allowing it to get around the neck of the dummy, down around its arms and torso before pulling the rope tight. I looked over at Draven again, taking in his impressive size, muscles, and the confidence and precision with which he had executed this demonstration. I had no doubt that he could bring down any one of us with that method, and have us at his mercy.

If I were a sponsor, I'd be supporting him with all the money I possessed and betting on him besides.

Ligeia came up to me later, which was surprising in and of itself, and she said "Come on, let's practice painting each other."

I raised my eyebrows, but I quickly deduced that she wanted us to be alone, where we couldn't be overheard.

"I saw you talking with Draven earlier," she said. "Did he try to recruit you, too?"

With a frown, I shook my head.

"Recruit me for what?"

"It's a… well, not an alliance, exactly. I think he's building up a network of supporters amongst the other tributes, people willing to carry out his dirty work for him in the other alliances and whatnot… He gave up on me pretty quickly, but some of the others… Daisy, for one, seemed completely charmed by him."

"And you think Daisy's dangerous?" I said, trying not to be amused. Maybe Ligeia was already paranoid, if this was how she was reacting to people like Daisy being charmed by someone who was clearly an attractive, charming sort of person.

"Don't underestimate anyone, Luke," she said coldly. "Scarlett Delannoy was certainly not favored to win. Forgetting that anyone can be dangerous under the right circumstances is a good way to get yourself killed."

I raised my eyebrows again, but we spent the rest of time until lunch practicing our camouflage skills in silence.

Lunch was typical, delicious food, Careers being rowdy in an attempt to scare some of the weaker, more timid competitors. Draven, I noticed, was having a quiet sort of discussion with Charlotte from District Seven, and she was giggling every five seconds.

There was something about him, Ligeia seemed to sense it too, that made me very wary, very suspicious, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I shook my head, grabbing another roll and trying to push Draven out of my mind. I was starting to get paranoid already, as was Ligeia, and we weren't even in the arena yet. It wouldn't do to start playing the Games before they'd really begun. Or perhaps… perhaps that was a mindset of a loser. Perhaps the victors weren't paranoid because of what happened in the arena… Perhaps they were alive because they were paranoid. I wondered vaguely if my sister would have even survived, had she managed to be chosen.

My guess was no. In fact, my guess was that I wouldn't survive, either, but if I was going to, I realized, I would have to start being a little bit more paranoid. Perhaps Ligeia was right. Perhaps I needed to start looking at every single tribute as the one who might put the knife in my back, if I gave them the opportunity. Even Daisy. Even Finley. Even Ligeia.

Especially Ligeia.

So I would have to not give them the opportunity to do so. It was that simple.

The whole afternoon spent training, I was sizing up my competition, looking for how they might exploit my weaknesses, knowing it was what Ligeia was doing, what Draven was doing, what Finley was doing, what Sebastien was doing… I should have started sooner, as I only had the following morning to actually figure out what the biggest dangers would be, and I also knew that I couldn't account for people hiding skills or even the arena itself. The non-Careers could make alliances that could tear my understandings of the group at large to pieces. I could only guess and hope my guesses weren't far off from reality.

Even if my calculations and assumptions were dead on, there were some disconcerting facts to grapple with. Ligeia, for one, would not only get more sponsors than I could ever dare hope for, but she would also be more than capable of killing me, knowing and being able to exploit my every weakness. And should Sebastien or Blake set their sights on killing me, I didn't think I would have a prayer of making it. And Draven… if Draven could trap me in one of those lassos he showed me that morning, I knew I would be finished.

The question became how to overcome those particular obstacles, knowing they would not be the only ones.


	6. It Hurts: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

After the second day of training, we all sat down to discuss the third day, the day when they would receive their scores, to determine strategies, as Blight had done with Chance and me. It was hard to believe that had only been a year before, since everything in my life was so different, so much darker than even just a few short days before going into the arena, but I knew that things could change in the blink of an eye, if the Capitol so desired. Despite the fact that I knew I wasn't the only one, I felt in that moment as though I knew it better than anyone.

"Have you worked out your strategies for tomorrow yet?" Blight asked, pouring me wine.

He knew I had gotten another note that afternoon. I had to meet a Capitol man named Kenelm Laguov that night or Trish would die and I could hardly think of anything else. I had spent the hours after receiving the note staring at a spot on the wall until Blight came to tell me that the tributes were coming back in twenty minutes and I would have to socialize whether or not I wanted to, and that it would be good to try to forget.

But how could I? It was all I could think of, and that was certainly understandable.

But he was right, of course, I had to focus on mentoring in that moment. It wasn't really "socializing", of course. It was one of my duties to the Capitol. But still, it felt as trivial as the socializing my sister had me do growing up, throwing little parties to try to make me have more friends. Why was I bothering? Charlotte was probably going to die, and if she managed to survive somehow, her whole existence would be miserable. So what was the point of trying to keep her alive?

I sat at the table, swirling my tea as the tributes discussed their strategies. Charlotte, apparently wanted some sort of blunt object. When she actually said allowed that her weapon of choice was a mace, I snorted, and didn't bother looking contrite when Blight gave me a stern look. Leave it to Charlotte to pick a weapon that required absolutely no finesse whatsoever.

"Have you thought on alliances, or are you sticking together?" Blight asked, trying to move the conversation in a productive direction.

According to them, they were thinking of just sticking together, or rather, according to Cephalus. Charlotte did not participate much in this part of the conversation, and that didn't escape my notice. What was her plan? Had she organized another alliance behind his back? Was she planning on killing him while his back was turned? Leaving him at the first sound of the gong and considering him an enemy from the first go?

Whatever it was going on in her head, I knew that she'd made up her mind, and even if it was foolish, which it probably was, there was no way of talking her out of it.

"Do you know what you're going to do for the interviews?" I asked, pretending to care. As far as I was concerned, they could die their happy deaths and I could maybe die as well. I…

Why couldn't I die? What was keeping me from that? Maybe I could throw myself off the building, or perhaps I could stab myself with some of the cutlery… They were probably watching me with an Avox ready to keep me alive, but the roof… could they stop me on the roof? After I was excused from the conversation, I went up to the roof, still having an hour before I had to meet the Capitol man. I figured Haymitch wouldn't mind my going through District Twelve's territory, and there was no other way to get roof access. When I was up there, I began walking the garden area, looking for the perfect place to make my move.

"You don't think they haven't thought of that, do you?" sneered a voice behind me. I turned to find Haymitch leaning against the doorway, still sneering at me. "They've got the roof rigged with force fields. So no tributes can throw themselves off the twelve-story building. Clever, aren't they?"

"That's not really the word I would have used," I said, turning to look out over the streets, knowing he wouldn't ask for the word I would have used. He wouldn't condemn me to death, as I was sure someone was watching, although I half wanted him to.

But Haymitch was smarter than that, unfortunately for me.

"How's training for your tribute?" he asked. "Has she fallen under the charms of Draven Dupre?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I didn't ask."

"About training," he said with a guffaw, "or about Draven?"

"Both," I sighed, leaning against the edge of the roof. "Why, what do you know about Draven Dupre?"

"Only that he's been trying to charm every female tribute to do his bidding," Haymitch said with a shrug. "I don't think he's remotely interested in any of them, though. From what Ken said, Draven's got his mind somewhere else."

"He winked at me," I said, recalling. "At the first night, with the chariots. I was a bit taken aback, and then I was furious, but he was already gone before I could really process it. I was a bit… out of sorts that day."

He grunted, but before he got a chance to say anything I said, "Speaking of, I'm not feeling too well right now." It was nearly time for me to be heading off to meet the Capitol man, Kenelm Laguov. "I've got to be going."

I made my way back toward the staircase and was about to start down them and Haymitch's voice from behind her said, "Hey, Scarlett." I turned back and looked at him, expecting to see sad eyes like I saw on Blight's face so often, but his back was to me. "Take care of yourself," he said softly.

The words glided over me as I went to the room that was designated for the meeting, and thankfully, the man was not there yet. There was something to be said for being early. My hands shook as I took off the long coat I had put on over the night things I had picked out to wear for this particular event. I barely had time to wonder what sort of man Kenelm Laguov would be and to crawl under the sheets of the bed before the door opened and my own personal hell entered the room.

Kenelm Laguov was a crusty old man, obviously incredibly wealthy, with his skin died a silly shade of blue, the same as his hair and nails and every other disgusting part of him. He walked with a cane, which meant that whatever ailed him was truly awful, if the Capitol doctors couldn't fix it well enough that he didn't need the cane and he couldn't be given some sort of artificial replacement for whatever it was that was wrong.

"Scarlett Delannoy," he said in his silly Capitol accent. "So nice to finally meet you."

"And you, sir," I said, trying to be the sweet, silly little girl all of Panem thought me to be. That was the Scarlett Delannoy this man had paid for. It was the Scarlett Delannoy I was expected to deliver. He pulled off his robe to reveal nothing but his shorts, which clung awkwardly to his old, withering body. For such a rich, powerful man, it seemed odd to me that he hadn't used the Capitol medicine and tricks to make himself appear younger. The interviewer for the Games, Caesar Flickerman, hadn't aged a day in the more than twenty years he'd held his job.

"I put a lot of money into you," he said. "Making sure you had enough food. When Blight told me you couldn't hunt, I thought you were a goner, and I couldn't have that. I bet quite a lot on you."

"Why?" I asked, trying to ignore the fact that he was coming ever nearer to me. "I wasn't favored."

"I know hungry eyes when I see them," he growled. "And a pretty, fit girl like you was bound to have a chance if she had the right materials. Once you had the hatchet, I knew you stood as good a chance as anyone in that arena."

I shivered as his hands roughly began removing the nightclothes from my body. He chuckled as I flinched.

"You've never done this before, have you?" he whispered. I shook my head, wondering if he would let me get out of it, not wanting to take that first time from me.

I trusted too much in the goodness of men, which was silly, really, considering he was of the same men who put children like me in an arena every year and forced us to fight to the death, betting on us and then prostituting us if we made it out alive. There was no goodness in such men, I was sure of it.

"How provincial," he said with a leer. "That was one of the things I found attractive about you, Scarlett, your lack of resemblance to the affected women of the Capitol. You're still but a sprig of youthful innocence, in spite of the things you've seen and done. I find that," he muttered, smelling my hair, "wildly attractive."

It seemed what I thought about the whole thing didn't matter very much, as he stripped me down, taking me out of the nightclothes, removing his own shorts.

I didn't know very much about sex. I knew some very basic, rudimentary things like what went where and things like that, but my father had left all of my education on such matters up to my sister, who was always a bit too preoccupied with other things to tell me more than the basics, and that was before she herself had even had sex. So as to what it felt like and what to expect, I knew absolutely nothing.

It was awful. It hurt, I was panicking, and he seemed to find my fear and pain amusing somehow. I spent much of the night moaning in pain and cringing away from him, but he kept saying how "provincial" and "sweet" my hesitation was, and all I wanted to do was to run away. But I couldn't. Even if I could have done so and been assured that no one would suffer my disobedience, my fear rooted me to the spot, right underneath his aging body. The silent tears that ran down my cheeks were either unnoticed or uncommented on by Kenelm Laguov.

When the night was, apparently, done, he laid back on the sheets, stretching out his wrinkled, spotted blue body and I lay beside him, trying to decide what to do. Before I could make up my mind, however, he turned to me.

"I have something for you," he whispered.

Thinking he must want more, I began to internally panic, but kept my face smooth and expressionless as I hollowly asked, "Yes, sir?"

He reached over to the robe he had been wearing and pulled out what was clearly an incredibly expensive pendant. In a swift, practiced motion, he had the pendant around my neck, the rose gold chain long enough for the deep green stone to linger just above my chest.

"It's beautiful," I said honestly.

"Just like you," he whispered gravelly, and I wanted to sob as he placed a kiss on my collarbone just above the gold chain. "I want to see you wearing it at the interviews tomorrow."

"Of course," I said, knowing I didn't have much choice. "Thank you."

"You're schedule's packed pretty tight," he whispered in my ear, "but I hope to be seeing you again very soon. Now, you should probably go back to your room. Busy day for your tributes tomorrow, and you want to be alert and awake."

I nodded, hollowly thanked him once more, and rushed as quick as possible back to my room without appearing rude.

As soon as I arrived, I stripped off the night clothes, rushed to the shower, and turned on the purest jet of cold water available, sinking to the floor as the water began to run over my body, chilling me as I huddled on the floor. Hours passed, probably the rest of the night, and sometimes I sat in the running water, sometimes turning it off to test.

The feel of Kenelm Laguov wouldn't go away.

I finally gave up and went out to my room. I sat huddled in the corner, naked and shivering, not because I was cold, but because I couldn't get the feel of the Capitol man off my skin. Blight would be in after me soon.

But to my surprise, it was not Blight who came to fetch me, but Haymitch Abernathy.

Perhaps I should have covered myself, but I couldn't find it in me to bother. He looked down at me. I looked down at the floor. He sat down beside me, back against the wall.

"Charlotte's getting anxious, Blight tells me," he slurred.

Somehow I was furious at him for being drunk already. I wanted to wring his neck, but I didn't have the energy to try. Then I wanted him to go away, but he just sat there, staring at the wall, not moving. Then I had the urge to tell someone how much pain I was in, and he was right there…

"Last night, I–"

"I know," he slurred. "Blight told me."

I couldn't fight my tears anymore. I buried my face in my hands. Despite him being Haymitch, despite the fact that he could see every inch of my bare skin, I didn't want him to see my shameful tears.

He continued to stare at the wall, but he wrapped his arm around my bare shoulders and I felt strangely more comforted than I would have thought. He wasn't there to take advantage of me. He was there to help me.

"My family's dead, too," he said gruffly, without any preface or explanation.

I buried my face in his shoulder and choked out, "It hurts, Haymitch. It hurts so badly. I showered twice and I can't… I can't wash the feel of him off me. And it hurts."

He hugged me tightly to him.

"It will fade," he whispered. "It will fade."

He just held me for what felt like hours as I cried into his shoulder. When I finally conducted myself, Haymitch helped me to my feet, steadied me, and hugged me once more, whispering in my ear, "Chin up, sweetheart. We'll make them pay one day."

Before I could ask what he meant, before I could thank him for his comfort and assurance, he was back out the door, leaving me standing alone, naked, in the middle of my room.

I suddenly realized that I wasn't fully naked, as I had assumed, but that the pendant Kenelm Laguov had given me was still hanging from my neck like a weight and a noose, reminding me of the kisses his old, lecherous lips had placed on my skin, of the way he had laughed at me and treated me and…

I took off the pendant and threw it onto the bed, swearing to never wear it again once the interviews were done. I wished I hadn't had to take it. I knew he was trying to be kind, in his way, paying me for me "services", but I wished there wasn't such physical, collaring reminder in the payment.

Without regarding the time I rushed back to the shower, pouring the icy stream of water over my body once more, and feeling a bit better, although nothing could truly assuage me, could truly fix the fact that there had been blood mixed with his fluids when I'd first showered, that he had touched me and his lips had touched me and I half expected my skin to be blue where he had touched me, as a reminder of the act.

They had gone already for the last day of training, and I was sure that Blight had coached Charlotte better than I ever could have as I dried myself off, finally starting to feel a bit more like a person. That afternoon they would show off their skills privately to the Gamemakers. I wasn't even sure what Charlotte's skills were. I shook my head as I dropped the towel and began rummaging through the drawers for something to wear.

The training scores would be assigned that night. Charlotte would be hoping for better than I got, trying to prove she was better than me. If she didn't get a better score than I had, she had no prayer of winning, especially as I knew she would actually be trying. I had been trying as hard as I could _not_ to display what skill I had. Charlotte was too jealous, prideful, eager to enact such a strategy. I figured if she didn't at least get a seven, she was dead and I wouldn't put much effort into supporting her. I had too much of my own to be worried about to add being concerned for her life on top of everything.

It had finally occurred to me that I was a mentor, that was supposed to be mentoring a tribute, attempting to keep her alive in the Hunger Games, interacting with other mentors and with sponsors, watching the Games with a critical eye for strategy and planning.

And the sponsors, the very people I was supposed to be charming on her behalf, were the very people who were paying to spend nights with me, spending money that could keep some child alive in order to have access to my body.

I felt the urge to vomit and take another long, cold shower.


	7. The Reality of Rumors: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

I woke up a bit late on the third day of training for the tributes and initially felt panicked. Why hadn't Mags woken me? Then I remembered that Mags and I had agreed to let Luke and Ligeia sleep in so that they would be well rested for the private sessions. She must have decided there was no point waking me up early when Luke wouldn't be up early, either. I pulled on clothes, stumbled out to breakfast, and found Mags sitting at the table, looking out on the Capitol, her back turned to the food.

"Sleep well?" she asked.

"Well enough," I replied, stretching out and sitting down. "Strange to think I'm almost sixteen. It's too bad I won't be able to have a proper party or anything. Maybe Haymitch will find extra liquor for watching the Games that day, or something."

She was surprisingly silent, staring out at the Capitol.

"Mags?" I said, sitting down beside her, trying to figure out what she was looking at. "You okay?"

She smiled sadly, put her hand on mine and said, "I'm old, Finnick. I'm getting too tired to do this for too much longer. Maybe Ligeia will take over for me, or maybe I'll die and you'll take on two tributes."

"Don't," I said earnestly. "You're not going to die, Mags. You'll outlive all of us and you'll have the strength to mentor for another fifty years."

She gave a humorless chuckle and patted my hand gently. She shook her head a little.

I didn't want Mags to die. She was just about the sweetest person I'd met in my life. She'd been around almost as long as the Games themselves, a familiar face to all and a beloved figure of the Games. What would any of us do without her?

Luke and Ligeia came in for breakfast and we greeted them, turning back to the table. We had discussed their strategies the night before, but it didn't hurt going over it all again, just in case. This would be the last time I saw them before they did their private sessions.

"So, are you ready for the big day?" I asked, more aware than ever of how I was doing as a mentor.

The truth of the matter was, Mags wasn't getting any younger. Other mentors had mentioned and I had noticed, that her speech was becoming less clear every year, although still several years out from simply becoming a garbled mess.

Ligeia had the same hard, determined look I remembered seeing on Stella's face the morning of my own final training day. Luke, on the other hand, looked a bit nauseous.

"Don't forget to eat up," I said, piling food onto his plate for him. "And be sure to eat a large lunch. If you're not thinking about your stomach, you'll do better."

"I'll be thinking about my stomach in the arena," Luke muttered.

"No you won't, stupid, we'll have all the supplies," Ligeia snapped.

"Things can happen to supplies, Ligeia," Mags said kindly. "It doesn't hurt to plan for the worst. Your chances of surviving will be greater in the event of something happening to your food."

Ligeia's mouth tightened, but she nodded. We sent them on their way as soon as they'd eaten and Mags said, "I'm worried about them."

"Ligeia's got a lot of promise," I argued. "Everybody says so."

"She's also got a lot of pride, arrogance, and not a lot of ability to listen to others," Mags sighed. "All of those can be incredibly dangerous. And Luke… he's got good instincts, but I don't think he's deadly enough to win."

"Just because he's not particularly deadly doesn't mean he's not capable of winning," I reasoned. "I mean, he could end up outlasting the others, letting everybody else kill each other off–"

"If you're a Career, that only works if you can somehow be in charge," Mags argued. "Otherwise, he'll be expected to do the dirty work and put himself on the line to protect the alpha. If he were on his own, absolutely, but he's not. He's got an alliance to put himself at risk for."

I bit my lip, looking down at the street. I hadn't thought of that. I knew he was weak and encouraged him to join with the Careers to help protect himself from them. Had I made the wrong call? Would he have been safer by himself, or with some unaffiliated ally, like Draven or the District Seven tributes? But there was no turning back, so I had to do everything within my power to keep him alive in spite of my possibly grievous miscalculation.

"They'll be fine," I reiterated. "You'll see. They'll get their scores tonight and everything will be fine. Just a couple more days and we won't have time to worry."

"No, we won't," she agreed. "We'll be too busy trying to keep them alive."

I shook my head, trying very hard to smile, but it wasn't easy, knowing from personal experience the things I would have to do to keep Luke alive, and he didn't hold half the promise Aidan had. I wasn't sure if it made it easier or harder to bite back my pride and put on my persona, knowing that Luke truly would not likely survive without my help, but it tasted sour, all the same.

"What have you planned for today?" she asked. "More secret planning with Lyme?"

"It's not secret," I said with an honest laugh. "You're certainly invited, too. No, Blight said he wanted to talk to me. I think it might be about Scarlett."

Mags gave me a bit of an exasperated look and I knew she wanted me to drop my concern for Scarlett, to focus on Luke, but how could I? Something was very, very wrong, and just because I hadn't figured out just what it was yet didn't mean it was all in my head. I even thought I'd seen Haymitch looking at her with concern at one point, but I probably imagined that.

I took my leave of Mags after not too long, heading up for the seventh floor, and the first thing I saw was Scarlett sitting on the arm of the sofa, staring blankly into space, obvious tearstains on her cheeks. Something, something had happened to her. I suppressed a shiver when I sat down beside her and she didn't even notice my presence.

"Scarlett?"

She kept staring straight ahead as though she hadn't heard me. I placed my hand on her arm and she jumped, looking around at me with fear in her eyes.

"Scarlett?" I asked. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"What?" she said in a tired, anxious sort of voice. "Oh, yes. Nightmare."

Something in the pit of my stomach nagged at me, telling me that she wasn't being honest with me. But why would she lie? She very likely had nightmares. I certainly did, as did every other victor I had talked to.

"Scarlett, is there something you want to talk about?"

She shook her head.

"No, thank you, Finnick. I think I just need a bit of a lie in before training is over for the day."

Without another word, Scarlett stood, staggered off to her room, and left me sitting on the couch, wondering what could be wrong. It only took another few minutes for Blight to come out of his room, looking around in confusion, probably for Scarlett.

"Hey, Finnick," he said, still frowning. "Have you seen–?"

"Scarlett?" I said. "Yeah, she just went off for a nap, apparently. Is she okay? She looked really out of it."

"She didn't get much sleep last night," Blight said roughly, sitting down across from me. "How have you been?"

I blinked.

Something had been really incredibly off about Scarlett and Blight was engaging me in small talk?

"I've been fine," I said honestly. "Guess my nightmares aren't as bad."

"No," Blight said cryptically. "No, I don't imagine they would be."

I tried for a moment to puzzle out what that meant as he poured us some orange juice. But I didn't want orange juice. I wanted answers.

I didn't turn it away, though, when he held out the glass to me.

"What's really wrong with Scarlett?" I asked bluntly as he took a long drink of his beverage. "Why won't anyone tell me what's wrong?"

Blight just looked at me for a moment, considering me, before setting his glass down on the side table and saying, "Scarlett's got a lot on her plate right now. She's not been sleeping well and likely won't for quite a while. She's gone through a lot lately, and I'm sure you remember what it was like when you first became a mentor. It's not easy. Also, you have to remember that your first tribute was a friend of yours. Hers is maybe not a friend, but someone she's known most of her life. That's a lot of added pressure."

I shook my head. Yes, being a mentor was not a simple task, but Scarlett was an intelligent girl and a wonderful strategist, as she had proven in her own Games. The first year was definitely the hardest, but Blight wasn't just making her do it all alone, and she seemed to actually be doing far less of her share of District Seven's work than I had done of District Fours the year before. Certainly, Mags expected more of me in my second year than my first, but she hadn't let me sleep in or cruise along. And the other thing was that he would expect her nightmares to be worse, but what would be worse about her Games than mine? I was sure that something was wrong, and nothing was adding up.

"What are you all keeping from me?" I said softly. "You know perfectly well that Scarlett's tougher than this. Something really awful must be going on if I find her crying to herself and staring at a wall, not even realizing I was in the room."

"Yes," Blight said slowly. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence and say everything's fine, but it's not my secret to tell. When she's ready to tell you, she will."

I could have thrown something, I was so frustrated, but it wouldn't do to throw a temper tantrum. No one would be any more likely to tell me anything and I certainly wouldn't gain any of the respect of my peers. Technically, I wasn't even sixteen yet.

So I relented and we talked about the Games, discussed who we thought would get the lowest score, and the highest score, and who would be the one to beat.

"I guess Sebastien," I said without really thinking it through. "Or Ligeia."

"But there's also Blake and Draven," he said casually. "Don't count out non-Careers, Finnick. I know you're used to working with Lyme and Mags and Cashmere and Gloss and whatnot, but Scarlett came out of nowhere, and she's far from the first to do so. There are some interesting possible winners this year."

"I suppose you're right," I said diplomatically. In truth, I didn't see how Sebastien and Ligeia could lose unless their fellow Careers turned on them, which wasn't likely. After all, it was a reasonably weak group of Careers. They would need all the help they could get to just get by for a while.

We continued to talk until lunchtime, and then we both grew too distracted with the knowledge that in a few hours' time our tributes would be returning from training to await their scores and so we said our goodbyes for the day and I went back down to the fourth floor, my mind still half on Scarlett, wondering what could be bothering her.

"I was worried Luke would beat you here," Mags said casually. "Did you find your answers?"

"No," I said, frowning, as I sat down beside her. "Only more questions."

"That is often the way of things," she said, offering me some stew.

We sat in almost absolute silence, waiting for Luke and Ligeia. When Luke came in he didn't look especially pleased with himself, which meant I couldn't hope for a surprisingly good score from him. Ligeia, however, came puffed up like a fisherman who'd gotten the catch of the day on her first go round and I couldn't help but feel a bit envious of Mags. Getting her sponsors, keeping her alive, would be so much easier than my task of keeping Luke alive. Just once I would like to have the favored tribute instead of the underdog.

They went to their rooms for a few hours to rest and sit anxiously in wait of the announcements of training scores. It would be quite a while, after dinner, when they would announce the scores, and that was one of the disadvantages of going so early. Their anxiety was greatest when they had already gone, however, and not before. The poor people in Districts Ten, Eleven, and Twelve had to wait for hours in anxiety for the other tributes to display their skills. It was better to be nervous when it was all over than when you were trying to be impressive.

Dinner was silent. I noticed that Ligeia's silent smugness was very different from her cousin's talkative smugness. Stella had rambled on and on about her accomplishments, about her great abilities and their display, and how she was going to have a great score. I probably should have been grateful that Ligeia wasn't quite as verbally obnoxious, but I honestly couldn't have said which of them annoyed me more.

When it was finally time for the announcements, we all sat down in front of the screen waiting.

Sebastien received a ten, then eights for the rest of District One and Two. Luke got an eight, which was respectable but certainly nothing special. Ligeia puffed up proudly as Caesar Flickerman announced her ten. Even those of us who had considered him impressive were surprised when District Six's fourteen-year-old Blake earned an eleven. Cephalus and Charlotte earned an eight and a six, respectively. Here were many fours, fives, and even the occasional six or seven, but I was certainly shocked to find that Draven Dupre of District Ten had earned not a ten, or even as low as an eight, but a six.

Luke let out a bit of a sigh of relief, but Ligeia continued to watch the screen with a hard, unreadable expression. I supposed that she wasn't ready to stop being suspicious just yet, knowing that Draven's greatest danger might not be in something he showed to the Gamemakers, might not even have been something he could have displayed in a training session… Not to mention that he came toward the end of the string of tributes on the display. The Gamemakers were hardly paying attention by that point, and who could blame them? They had seen mediocre performance after mediocre performance for hours by that point. Why bother continuing to watch?

"You should probably go off to bed now," I said softly, still staring at the screen. "We've got to train you up for your interviews in the morning before we send you off to the stylists."

They agreed, going off to their rooms and I looked over at Mags.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Should we split the work? I don't think I'm rather up for teaching Luke posture and whatnot."

"Are you suggesting that I work with them on presentation and you do content?" Mags asked, an amused smile on her face.

I shrugged.

"If you don't mind," is said slowly, hoping she wouldn't.

"No," she said with a nod, "as long as we agree to strategies to try before I send you off, and I warn you that Ligeia may not listen to you, anyway."

"I'm honestly not particularly worried about her content," I said. "With a ten she could pretty much flash a pretty smile, wear a decent dress, and get sponsors no matter what. It doesn't hurt that they've been talking about her relationship to Stella, as nobody's forgotten how close Stella came to winning."

"I think the fact that you won ensures that until there's another year with half as exciting an end," Mags whispered thoughtfully, "not a soul in Panem will forget how close Stella came to winning it all."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Sure Scarlett–"

"Scarlett's ending was anti-climactic and lacking in drama," Mags said. "The fact that you left your District partner to bleed out on a beach while you put out of her misery a girl from another District who had probably spent the whole time thinking of a way to kill you."

"They both were," I pointed out, rubbing my eyes tiredly. "And Alana had been my ally, at least."

"True," Mags conceded, "but I think there was a misconception that you and Stella had a weakness for each other, that there was some sort of romantic history implied in your refusing to ally together, hoping someone else would do the other one in."

"That's absurd," I snorted. "That's just ridiculous Capitol gossip, Mags."

"Oh, I know," she said with a smile, "but you would be surprised what sort of gossip is told often enough to become as good as fact here in the Capitol."

It was a sickening fact, but true and we talked for a little while longer, making a shortlist of interview methods to try out with the tributes in the morning, and then we said good night, and I went into my room, changing into night clothes, staring at the Capitol bed and wondering how my life, how my reality would have been different had I never been reaped for the Games, had I never been drawn into the world of the Hunger Games. I wondered, as I rolled into bed, pulling the covers up around me, what my life would have been like if the Capitol had never even heard of me, much less made me the subject of their idle gossip.


	8. Living With the Dead: Luke

**A/N: Luke's POV**

As soon as we arrived at breakfast, Ligeia and I were told that we would begin training for interviews as soon as we finished our food. I wondered vaguely what they would have to teach us that would take so long, but it was a foolish though. Mags spent several hours alone teaching me how to stand, walk, sit, and smile properly for an audience. Apparently, I didn't have much presence, and so she was constantly adjusting my posture, flicking me hard on the shoulder when I wasn't sitting or standing exactly as she had taught me twenty minutes prior.

"Is this really necessary?" I moaned, flinched as she flicked my shoulder for the fifth time as I was attempting to sit properly, according to Mags's standards. "I mean, they won't even be looking at me when I'm not with Caesar, and then I'll be standing."

"There will be at least one sponsor looking out at all times, I promise you," Mags insisted. "Consider yourself an actor from this moment on whenever you are not in this apartment. Someone is always watching, and you are expected to hold up the persona Finnick works out with you this morning, is that understood?"

I told her it was very much understood and she kept me for another twenty minutes until she was satisfied that I could managed myself well enough and sent me over to Finnick to work on the content of my interview.

Content didn't mean what I was talking about specifically, as no one knew the questions or opportunities that might arise on stage. Some people worked out what they were going to say and found a way to work it in no matter if it fit or not, but Finnick didn't advise this. I had nothing special to say, anyway.

No, content was the word used to describe the persona I would be channeling. Finnick had been charming, Scarlett Delannoy had been sweet, but the most important thing about the choice of persona, beyond the fact that a poorly executed interview could be a deterrent for potential sponsors, was that victors were by and large expected to carry on that persona for the rest of their lives, in public, anyway.

I sat down across from Finnick, looking out at the Capitol streets. I knew Ligeia would be learning presentation and presence from Mags as I fumbled through my mock interview, and I wasn't sure if I envied or pitied her.

"We're going with likeable for you," Finnick said, smiling at me. "That shouldn't be a problem. Neither of you were really that hard to pinpoint."

"Let me guess," I said dryly, "Ligeia's angle is to be sexy like her cousin?"

"She actually suggested it before the words got out of my mouth," Finnick laughed. "Which is good, if you think about it, because if I'd suggested it, it would be the last thing she would possibly want to do."

That was certainly true, knowing Ligeia's semi-rational hatred of and distrust toward Finnick.

"So," I said slowly, "how are we going about making me be likeable?"

It turns out, for something that shouldn't have been a problem, it still managed to take several hours of mock questions and lecturing on demeanor and what I wasn't allowed to say. Apparently I had a self-defacing tone, which was good, but I needed to also be confident.

"How can I be self-defacing and confident at the same time?" I asked, rubbing the heels of my palms over my closed eyes in frustration.

"You say confident things," Finnick explained calmly, "but you say them in a way that doesn't sound cocky or self-important, like you know Sebastien's going to do."

He was right, Sebastien was certainly going to be self-important and boisterous, much like he had been during training, attempting to intimidate the other tributes, and I had a picture in my mind of how Ligeia would play her part, stroking his ego and flirting until he was dead and then taking over with her own brand of brutality and intimidation. She would know it wouldn't be safe to try to defy or control Sebastien, but she would be preparing herself for his downfall.

After several hours of practice, Finnick declared me prepared, taking me down to see my stylist, who began showing me the suit I would wear, which was just a simple but stylish sea-green suit. The prep team went about fixing my hair and pressing makeup onto my skin. I wondered if they ever dealt with someone who told them they didn't want the makeup or that they wanted more normal-looking clothes. Perhaps it had happened during the earlier years of the Games, but I suspected that a long-standing conspiracy went between the mentors and the stylists, warning all fresh tributes to do as the stylist told them.

I paced nervously around knowing that any minute I would be told it was time to go down for the interviews. Caesar Flickerman would be interviewing us, yet again. He was an old familiar face, doing interviews for about a quarter of a century. He hadn't aged a day, although he always had a different color of wig and eyebrows when he did a new set of Games. I speculated what color he might have used for this year, thinking it was possibly some sort of vomity yellow-green. I shuddered at the thought.

"All right," Finnick said patting me on the back. "You'll be fine. Chin up. Don't let the other tributes get under your skin. Listen to their three minutes, but focus on the content of yours. You can't do anything about how anyone performs today but you, so keep that in mind and you'll be golden, okay?"

I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that I was a bit sick to my stomach, and that seeing Ligeia's smug expression in her wispy blue dress that showed more leg than was probably healthy for the population of Panem to witness only made my head spin more.

We lined up in order, females in each District going before the male. Having to walk behind Ligeia made my head spin even more, I realized, as I tried to keep myself from looking at her legs.

The last person to arrive was Draven Dupre, looking smug and suave in his white suit, which made his dark hair stand out even more. I noted that several of the girls tittered and giggled when he arrived and I rolled my eyes, exchanging a dark look with Finley, who acted as though he was trying to catch my eye, but I knew he was ogling at Ligeia's legs.

We were called out onto the stage and I could feel my knees knocking, hoping that I wouldn't fall over when I got to the stage, on television, in front of all of Panem.

Caesar Flickerman had three minutes to talk to each of us, starting with Violet from District One, who was trying to charming, then Sebastien who was attempting mysterious and bold. Catriona went for humble and thrilled to be there. Finley looked a bit out of sorts, because apparently he and Sebastien had wanted to go for the same sort of angle, but it didn't work half as well for Finley.

"So, Ligeia," Caesar said. "Your cousin was a tribute just two years ago. How difficult was it to watch her die?"

Ligeia pursed her lips and gave a tight sort of smile. I was very curious how she was going to make herself sexier through this line of questioning.

"It was difficult," she said with a nod. "Losing a loved one is never easy, but it's my hope to avenge her this time around, set our family back into honor."

Suddenly I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that avenging her cousin would mean killing me. At the end of her three minutes, it was my turn.

"And now, join me in welcoming Luke Maddox, District Four!"

I went forward to where Caesar was, trying not to shake. Caesar greeted me with a handshake and I stared at his periwinkle eyebrows, trying not to let the roar of the audience make me even more nauseous. I looked out to where the mentors were and saw Finnick sitting next to Scarlett Delannoy, whispering something in her ear, but he smiled and gave me a nod.

It was all I could do not to swallow a bit.

"Luke, tell me, are you excited to be here?"

"Yes, sir," I said with a smile. "It's a dream come true."

There was a rush of excitement in the audience and I just tried to smile, but I knew it came across as a nervous smile. I could feel my stomach churning.

"You volunteered, Luke," Caesar said. "Can you explain to Panem what was going through your mind as you stepped forward?"

I took a deep breath, trying to think back to reaping day. It felt like so long ago, although it had been only several days ago.

"I was thinking about my family," I said. "I was thinking about my family and how proud they would be if I were chosen."

"I'll bet they were proud," Caesar said with a grin.

"Yes, sir," I said, smiling genuinely. I didn't feel nervous after that, talking to him about my family, answering questions about my sister. Three minutes went by surprisingly fast and I found myself not breathing a sigh of relief when it was time for District Five. I tried to listen to the others, but I found myself getting caught up watching the lights on the stage and wondering what ridiculous clothes the Capitol people were wearing.

Blake of District Six also went for charming, and he might have gotten away with it if he didn't still look like such a child. Charlotte Jacobsen of District Seven really took the cake, in my opinion, her jealousy of Scarlett Delannoy leaking off of her in waves. Not to mention, she attempted to be sexy but looked a bit more like a potato in a dress.

"So, Charlotte, do you think you've got what it takes to win?" Caesar asked eagerly.

"Absolutely," she said in a voice that probably seemed seductive in her mind. "After all, Scarlett Delannoy won, so how hard can it really be?"

If I hadn't been in the zone with my expressions like Mags taught me, my jaw would have dropped to the floor at that. She actually spent the rest of her three minutes talking about all of the things she'd beat Scarlett at growing up, and I so badly wanted Caesar to ask her what things Scarlett beat Charlotte at, but it was his job to make us all look our best, so he would never have done that.

Her district partner, Cephalus, was nice enough, pulling out likable, but he would have the disadvantage of being paired with Charlotte, who no sponsor in their right mind would want to support.

Draven Dupre was called forward after his district partner, Freya, proved herself to be quite a comedienne. He shook Caesar's hand firmly and settled in like he owned the stage.

It was clear in a matter of seconds that he was going for an aloof angle. He was above it all, and I got shivers down my spine just thinking about how deserved this angle would be, in spite of his surprisingly low training score.

"Have you got your eye on a special girl, Draven?" Caesar asked. "You're tall, dashing. Anyone special in your life?"

"Well to be honest, Caesar, I've had my eye on a girl for a bit," he said with a smile, "but she doesn't know me. I'm planning to win for her, and hoping she'll fall in love with me, but I doubt she'll be overly impressed."

"And why's that?"

"She won last year," Draven said with a smile. "I spent last summer falling in love with Scarlett Delannoy."

The audience tittered with surprise and gushing and Caesar expressed what a good-looking couple they would be, and by their calculations, he was two months older than her, and so by her own words, she was eligible for consideration because she wasn't younger than him.

Finnick was still laughing about it when Ligeia and I gathered with him and Mags to discuss how our interviews went and to say our final farewells before the Games.

"It was refreshing, having Scarlett's love life talked about with someone other than me in the picture," he sighed, finally coming down from a particularly violent bout of laughter.

Mags was obviously entertained, but she had a much more serious expression as she considered us.

"Any last minute advice before we go to sleep, then?" Ligeia said impatiently, obviously less than interested in Finnick's interest in Scarlett Delannoy's love life.

"Just remember everything we've told you," Mags said calmly. "Don't forget to hold your heads up high and don't be intimidated by the other Careers or anyone else. No matter how you feel about them as people or who's got a higher training score, you two both have what it takes to win, and don't you forget it."

"Sounds good," Ligeia said dismissively. "Night."

I watched her, knowing I looked like a wide-eyed idiot as she walked off to her room to take a shower and go to bed. When she was out of sight, I turned back to Mags and Finnick, who were raising their eyebrows at each other.

"Well," Mags sighed, "I suppose that's my cue for bed as well. Luke, best of luck. Fight hard."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, smiling. "Sleep well."

"You sleep well," she replied, heading down the hall. "It might be your last night of real sleep. Make it count."

I swallowed hard, trying not to look as scared as I felt as I turned to Finnick, who was considering his glass of orange juice carefully. I just watched him for a moment, wondering if he was going to give me any advice, but realizing he was lost in his world, that something was bothering him.

My first instinct was to go to bed, but as this might be the last time I would ever see Finnick, who'd already done so much for me, it didn't seem right to leave him like that, staring at a glass of orange juice looking like he was trying to figure out why it had offended him.

"Finnick?" I said softly.

"Mmm."

"Are you okay?"

He shrugged.

I paused, wondering if maybe I shouldn't just go to bed, but I'd come this far. It was no good turning back.

"Finnick, you're looking at that orange juice like it's the key to solving poverty if you could make it purple."

He snorted, looking up at me and said, "I'll bet an Avox could get me something to turn it purple in about five minutes. I'm fine, Luke. Be worried about yourself. I'm not the one going into the arena tomorrow."

For a moment, I didn't know what to say. Yes, I would be going into the arena, but he very obviously wasn't fine, and it felt so much better to focus on someone else's problems for just a little while. But it was also obvious that Finnick wasn't ready to open up to me right away, so I had to figure out some way to turn talking about me into talking about him….

"What's it like, killing somebody?"

Finnick just looked back at the orange juice for a full minute before saying, "It gets easier."

"Is it ever easy?" I whispered.

"It can be," he sighed. "Sometimes it feels more natural than breathing, but that doesn't mean the next one will be. Killing Stella was almost easier than it should have been, but killing Alana was a lot harder than it ought to have been. But you may not have to kill very many people. There's always anomalies, deadly people who make a point of proving themselves the most deadly who don't leave much for anyone else, or particularly vicious arenas that lay waste to the whole group, leaving only a handful of people to battle out the rest."

"What about after the killing?" I said. "Is being a victor as easy and nice as everyone says it is?"

Finnick looked up at me, obviously surprised. Aidan must not have asked him that question. I wondered if it was a question many tributes asked, especially Careers. Once I thought about it, it was the sort of thing tributes out to have asked more often, trying to decide whether it was worth living at that point. From what I'd seen on Scarlett Delannoy's face, being a victor didn't make all of a person's problems disappear.

"No, it's not necessarily," Finnick said slowly. "Some things get easier. Feeding family is easier. You don't have to work a regular job like at the docks or on the sea. But you have to keep up your persona, to watch the kids you train and mentor die despite your best efforts, and on the off chance they might survive you still give it your all to keep them alive because it's better than dying some gruesome arena death. At least," he said smirking eerily down at his juice, "that's what we tell ourselves, that it's better to be alive, because otherwise we'd have a hard time living with the things we had to do to stay breathing." He sighed heavily and said, "Because I'll tell you, Luke, the hardest part about killing somebody isn't killing somebody. It's the afterward, the living with it when all's said and done and you see them every night in your dreams, taking their revenge. The ones who don't see them are lying and the ones who aren't lying aren't saying it to your face and the ones who are saying it to your face don't have anywhere near the worst of it."

Suddenly I understood why he was so worried about Scarlett Delannoy, the most recent victor. He was sure she was seeing the faces of the dead and that she wasn't dealing well with the haunting.

"She'll talk when she can't handle her demons alone," I said softly. "She trusts you more than most. Good night, Finnick."

He just blinked and watched as I headed off to bed, hoping I would get my last decent night of sleep, maybe of the rest of my life.


	9. The Amazing Draven Dupre: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

Luke's words were still ringing in my brain as I got up and changed the following morning.

I was in no hurry. We didn't have to be up watching the Games in our group's typical spot on the twelfth floor until the bloodbath began, and first the tributes would have to be transported to the arena, taken to the underground area specified for them to change into their tribute outfits and receive the final bits of advice and encouragement from their stylists.

To be honest, I wasn't particularly eager to be getting up to the twelfth floor, seeing Haymitch so early in the morning.

At breakfast, Mags looked a bit ill. I almost asked her if she was feeling up to meeting with sponsors, but she went right into the schedule of meeting them, and she insisted that we meet them jointly the first day, probably thinking that it would do Luke some good if we came right out presenting a united front for the two of them. That is, if they managed to uphold that sort of vibe until lunch.

I thought that they could manage that, at the least. The bloodbath was usually an hour before lunch in the Capitol, and only so much could happen between then and lunch. Still, there was always the potential that Ligeia would try to kill all the other Careers during the bloodbath. Stella would have done it, if she'd had a chance to try. But I thought Ligeia would be smarter than her cousin, more cautious, ultra-aware of how the other tributes perceived her and the importance of gaining their trust, especially after what her cousin had done.

I would have to ask Cashmere if it was difficult for her, following in Gloss's footsteps. It seemed to me that having a family member compete before could cause a lot of pressure, particularly in Career districts. That would have to wait until later, though, because Mags and I were due on the twelfth floor for the start of the Games.

Scarlett was sitting on the edge of a sofa, next to Haymitch, staring blankly at the screen and I perched myself on the arm of the sofa, kissing the top of her head.

"Good morning," I said softly. "Did you not sleep well?"

She just shrugged as the other mentors began taking bets on who would be killed first and who would have the first kill.

"I'm telling you," Jonas, from District Eight, insisted, "it's going to be Vin. We were right last year, weren't we?"

"All the more reason why we're not betting on yours this year," Chaff from District Eleven laughed. "What do you think, Haymitch, Ken or Becky?"

"Ken," Haymitch said with a slur already. "Becky's got some spunk. Plus, I think she's going to latch onto Draven, and that'll get her some protection."

"Does Draven actually have any allies?" I asked. "Or is he just flirting with everyone under the sun?"

"Girls are stupid," Scarlett said flatly. "I'm sure Charlotte's going to be the first to do his bidding."

I raised an eyebrow at her, but Scarlett said no more. It was frustrating, sometimes, how eager she was to say some things and how closed off she was about others. Finally, I leaned forward and whispered, "You know, if you don't brighten up that sullen expression, the sponsors aren't going to be too keen to keep Charlotte alive."

"I don't care," she hissed, and I saw Haymitch tense beside her, as well as Blight, who was apparently listening from down the sofa.

"You don't mean that," I whispered, but she didn't answer, and I got the feeling that she really did.

"Here we go," Alondra said, hushing us as the tributes began to rise onto their discs.

The arena was filled with sand, bushes, and boulders. There would be little hiding in this climate, and I imagined that there was very little water accessible, just as I had told Luke. I felt bad, almost like I'd jinxed it.

Luke was standing between Ida and Charlotte. As the sixty seconds were counting down, I scanned the Cornucopia. Just about every weapon I'd ever seen was there for the taking.

"Now this is going to be an interesting set of Games," Haymitch whispered. "No water, very little food… Nowhere to hide. This could be even quicker than yours, Finnick."

"Could be," I said. "Or they could find some way to drag it out for weeks."

"Bets on the length?" Callie asked. "I'm going for a week and a half."

"Two and a half," Chaff countered.

"You're on," she laughed.

"Here we go," Scarlett said in a dull voice, and we turned back to the screen to see the last five seconds of the countdown before the mines were deactivated and the bloodbath began.

When the tributes were signaled that the Games had begun, they took off running. Luke got his hands on a knife rather quickly and Ida was the first to die. What surprised us all was the rest of the bloodbath: only three deaths. Daisy killed Cephalus with a hand axe. Catriona did the ultimate turncoat move and ran Violet through with a sword, and Maggie managed to get Blake in the neck with a hand axe. All three of them, plus Charlotte, ran off with Draven, who hadn't even lifted a finger in his defense, grabbing a length of rope and filling a pack with as many weapons as he could get his hands on.

I blinked.

"Did that just happen?" I asked, staring in awe at the screen, wondering if Draven had truly just pulled off what I thought he had.

"Well," Blight said, "on the bright side, Luke made a kill. That'll be helpful in negotiations."

"You know what else?" Mags said with an almost sinister smile. "You're going to have to work with Rayne."

Callie groaned and Blight winced, but Scarlett just blinked at the screen. Neither of us had met Rayne, so I wasn't sure what was so bad about her. I knew she'd won just after Lyme, so maybe Lyme would know how to deal with her, but other than the fact that she was an expert archer, I knew nothing.

In actuality, Blight wouldn't have to work with Rayne at all. Cephalus had died. Charlotte was Scarlett's responsibility, but even beyond the fact that it was customary for both tributes to work on behalf of the surviving tribute once one died in their district, I was fairly certain that Blight felt like it was his responsibility to help Scarlett, since she was so not herself lately.

Four cannons sounded and we watched as Finley and Luke went off in one direction, Sebastien and Ligeia in the other. Draven and his harem were heading off in still another direction, and all three hunting groups were searching for stray tributes.

Within ten minutes, Finley had run Haymitch's boy through with a javelin. Five minutes later, Charlotte bludgeoned the girl from District Five with a mace.

"Well," I said, blinking at the screen, "she's certainly got a lot of… aggression."

"Yeah," Scarlett said, staring at the screen as the corpse at Charlotte's feet trickled blood all over the sand and a cannon sounded. "She certainly does."

"You realize we're going to have to deal with Gloss and Brutus without Lyme?" I complained to Mags from across the room. She nodded with a small smile and Callie playfully tossed an apple at me for complaining about the sort of problems most mentors would love to have.

No, it wasn't fair that my tributes came pre-trained and told their whole lives how to hand the Games while most of the tributes barely knew what descent bread looked like, but I wasn't going to tread lightly around the issue. They were adults, most of them well older than me, and they could certainly handle it.

There was more tracking and following and I found myself wishing away the moments until lunch arrived, despite the interaction with sponsors it would bring. For one, I was hungry and for another, I needed a break from the already minimal bloodshed. Each year the Games seemed to be just a little bit harder to stomach and I understood why Mags was so tired, so ready for her time as a Mentor to be over, even though she hadn't served as a mentor every year since her own victory.

Luke came onto to screen and I sat forward a bit. He and Finley were tracking Chaff's tribute, who had gone off past Haymitch's boy, being just a bit faster. He'd even managed to grab a pack, but we hadn't seen what was in it yet.

"Damn it," Chaff sighed. "Here we go, another year and nothing."

We chucked awkwardly, but I had a feeling it must be frustrating, getting attached year after year and getting no results. I couldn't remember the last time District Eleven had won the Games.

"What do you think?" Finley hissed, watching as the boy from Eleven panted on the rock he'd stopped on from behind the boulder guarding Luke and Finley from his sight.

"Well, if you hadn't left the javelin in the boy from Twelve I'd say you take him," Luke whispered back, "because I can't throw to save my life."

"Not even from this distance?"

Luke shook his head, narrowing his eyes.

"Do you think he's armed?"

Finley tipped his head from side to side as if to say that he couldn't tell. He narrowed his eyes, leaning a little bit closer.

"Nothing obvious," he said finally, "but there's certainly space to hide a knife or two in these things. Did you see him when he was at the Cornucopia?"

Luke shook his head again and said, "No, once I got Ida I got a bit distracted by Catriona's betrayal."

"To be honest," Finley said with a dark smirk, "I was sure it was going to be Ligeia, betraying us, although I didn't think it would happen so early."

"Yeah, well, keep your wits about you, it's still early," Luke snorted. "She saw through Draven, unlike the other girls, apparently. Except for Finnick, where she's got an understandable blind spot, Ligeia's quite a good judge of character."

I smirked. She probably was, but if she couldn't get through her brain the fact that I was working to help her, she couldn't be too great of a judge. But then, Luke made an excellent point: She had a blind spot. We all had blind spots. For example, Scarlett didn't seem to understand just how intriguing she was, if her self-derisive remarks after Draven's announcement of devotion to her were what she really thought of herself.

Draven…. It boggled my mind completely that he was still able to get all of those girls to do his bidding, even after his declaration of love for Scarlett. Perhaps he'd told them about it in advance, told them it was part of his strategy for the sponsors and not to pay attention to it. And perhaps it was a strategy, but I certainly believed him, and I figured that most of Panem bought it, as well.

But then, Luke was right about that, Ligeia saw through Draven, and she was an excellent judge of character. I think anyone who saw my Games would be able to attest that my personal scale for character was a bit off. After all, I'd allied myself with Alana, even if she had been allies with Lila.

"All right, well sitting here isn't going to get him killed," Luke sighed. "Be ready to cover me, in case something happens."

"What am I supposed to do?" Finley snapped. "I haven't got a weapon!"

"You've got hands, yes?" Luke hissed back, aggravated. "Use them! Distract him! I don't care, just catch him off guard and you'll be fine. Honestly, I'm sure Ligeia and Sebastien aren't having these arguments."

"No, they're probably eating each other's faces off," Finley said with a grin. "Did you see the way he was looking at her in that dress last night?"

"Ugh," Luke spluttered softly. "Please don't say that. You know we're going to have to live with them, probably for weeks. I'd rather ignore that any such disgustingness is occurring, thank you very much."

"You can't deny she's hot," Finley reasoned.

"No, I can't," Luke agreed, "but I can certainly ignore what she may or may not be doing with Sebastien in their spare time. It's really not any of our business, and it's a bit disturbing that you sit around thinking about it."

I rolled my eyes, wondering when they would stop being stupid teenage boys and get on with it.

"All right, then," Luke sighed. "Now's the time. Tell you what, I've got a better plan now. You gather up some of these smaller rocks, go around that way, and toss them at him as you move in a circle away from here, distracting him from me. I'll get him from behind."

"That could work," Finley muttered, impressed, and I could hear a few male victors grunting in agreement.

Finley gathered up a handful of small rocks and started moving away, getting about twenty paces from Luke before tossing them in ten second intervals as he scooped up more with the other hand. With the distraction, Luke crept forward, unnoticed by Chaff's boy. I watched with bated breath as he neared his opponent, heard only too late as the boy turned, spotted Luke, and lunged, right onto Luke's waiting knife. Luke pushed him off, held him on the ground, and slit his throat thoroughly, not leaving any chances of a comeback by this boy. The cannon sounded and Luke and Finley rested, looking at the boy and using sand to clean of Luke's knife before moving along.

"Glad that's over," Luke said, his voice a bit shakier than it had been while they were discussing the kill prior to enacting it.

"You did well," Finley said with a grin. "Kid never had a chance. Do you remember where we were supposed to meet up with the others?"

Luke shook his head.

"Probably just head back to guard the supplies, make sure none of the others are trying to get at it while we're gone. We're going to have to come up with a better system than this for protecting it, you know. Wanna pile it up, maybe think of some traps?"

"Sure," Finley said with a shrug. "Let's go."

At that point, those of us who still had tributes alive and in the running had to go schmooze with the sponsors. I overheard several people on my way in asking Blight where Scarlett was and he looked incredibly uncomfortable.

Of course, more time oozing charm left me wanting little more than to take a long, cold shower, but instead I went straight back to the screen where Scarlett was sitting, staring, knowing that there was every possibility that I might miss something important if I stopped to take a shower.

"How's everyone doing?" I asked, sitting down on the couch beside Scarlett.

"Nothing new," Scarlett said with a shrug. "Luke and Finley are having a really tough time of getting the food together. The lizards are giving them the fight of their lives."

"Nobody's died since I left?" I asked.

"No, not yet," she sighed. "They were right about Ligeia and Sebastien, they're flirting up a storm. It's disgusting."

"What, you don't approve of flirting your way to a win?" I teased. "I thought all pretty girls were willing to take that strategy."

Haymitch, who had just come in and sat down growled, "Cut it out, Luke. Someone's about to get killed."

I didn't have time to be upset with him because Haymitch was right, Draven had used a rope to lasso Ronan's boy and was standing over him with a longsword, his female helpers off behind him.

Draven didn't waste a moment saying anything to his whimpering victim, but simply decapitated him, pulled the rope off when the cannon sounded, and cleaned off his sword with sand as he went.

"Don't like it," he snapped, handing the sword to Daisy. "We'll try the harpoon next time."

The casual way Draven handled his kills made me uneasy, just like the casual way he treated the girls he'd collected to do his bidding. The other person who looked uneasy every time he came on the screen was Scarlett, but she didn't seem anything but uneasy lately. The other mentors filed back in, gathering around the screen, bragging about their acquisitions of sponsors for their tributes.

The screen then turned to Freya, Draven's district partner who had been left to fend for herself. From the looks of things, she hadn't managed to acquire anything during the bloodbath and she was shivering, stumbling along the desert, obviously thirsty from the way she kept smacking her lips.

Freya stumbled across a bit of water, a sort of muddy spring, and I held my breath, hoping she had the good sense not to drink something so obviously unclean, no matter how thirsty she was, but it appeared that Freya was probably lacking in sense because she hadn't even gone a full day yet without water. There was no way she should be thirsty enough to put her lips to that liquid, but she did it anyway.

It was a painful few minutes, watching her gulp down water until she started getting sick. For almost an hour we watched as she retched into the sand beside her little pond of bad water before her body went still in the sand and a cannon sounded.

"That was quite fast," Mags commented. "I would have thought she could have held on until morning. Either she's weak or that water's got some sort of Capitol poison in it."

"Probably both," Haymitch snorted.

It didn't escape my notice the blankness in Scarlett's eyes as the hovercraft scooped up Freya's pale body. She wasn't even a little be fazed.


	10. More Alone Than Ever: Luke

**A/N: HELLO LOVELIES! This chapter is in Luke's POV. I love how attached you're all getting to Luke. He's certainly one of my favorite characters I've ever written, but this story is as much about Scarlett and Finnick as it is about Luke, and it's about to heat up in the next chapter, so hold on to your hats! There is a rumor that FF is actually doing a sweep for adult content. I think my Hunger Games works are safe, but some of my Harry Potter works (particularly **_**Two Can Play This Game**_**) might be in jeopardy. IF anything gets deleted, I'll be posting it again on my site, **_**charlotteblackwood dot wordpress dot com**_**. IF my account gets deleted, the same thing goes. I'll be putting up chapter installments of finished stories and oneshots first, finishing all stories, and even writing some new ones. There will also be updates on my original works on that site, if you want to check it out. I'm hoping to release a novel for eBook at the end of the year, and I'm nearly done with my first draft of my novel! Again, this is Luke's POV, so I hope you all enjoy, cheers, and keep your eyes peeled in case I disappear!**

-J

Finley and I awoke to the sound of cannon fire. Ligeia and Sebastien weren't back yet, and my first thought was that Ligeia probably killed Sebastien in his sleep. Whatever the cause of the sound, however, it got us up and on alert.

"Who do you want for your next kill?" Finley asked me casually, picking a new javelin from our supplies.

"I don't really care," I sighed. "As long as I get them before they get me, it doesn't really matter to me who they are."

"I want the girl from Twelve," Finley said sharply. "It'd be nice to have a set."

I just shook my head, marveling at how he thought about the whole thing.

"Who do you think just died?" I asked, packing up a pack that would last us the day as we went hunting, apparently for the girl from Twelve. Finley looked over the javelins, choosing one for the journey.

"Hopefully not the girl from Twelve," he joked. "I don't know, maybe Draven. that'd give us all a good rest."

"We'd still have each other," I pointed out. After all, most years the Careers stuck together long enough to kill off most of the competition then took out each other. We would become enemies, sooner or later.

"Yeah," he sighed, grabbing a javelin. "We would. You ready to go?"

"Ready," I said, throwing the pack over my shoulder. "Did you happen to notice which direction your girl from Twelve went?"

"Follow me!" he said with a laugh, leading me onward. There was no point in us sneaking around. The girl from Twelve wasn't a threat at all when both of us were armed. After a bit of walking, Finley seemed to become aware of the possibility that the cameras were on us and he started chatting.

"So what do you think you'll do if you win, Luke?" he asked, playing with his javelin as we walked.

"I'll sleep a lot more," I joked. "And I'll not really know what to do with myself as far as mentoring. Finnick's a great mentor. It would be better if Ligeia won, gave Mags a nice retirement, but I don't know how easy that would be for future tributes, working with Ligeia and Finnick. I think there would be a lot less cooperation."

We both laughed.

"I think I'd buy something really big and expensive," he said thoughtfully, "like a desk."

I laughed and said, "Don't the victor's houses come furnished?"

"Exactly," he said with a shrug. "It would be extravagant. I could afford to be extravagant as a victor. Better than buying booze."

I nodded in agreement and I spotted a figure in the distance, trotting along in the sand dejectedly. I squinted.

"Female up ahead," I muttered, pointing out. "Who do you think it is?"

He squinted too, grinning.

"Dark hair," he said. "It's not Ligeia because she's with Sebastien. I think it's Twelve."

"Wait until we get closer to kill her, all right?" I sighed. "I want to be sure it's not Ligeia. If that was Sebastien that died this morning she wouldn't be with him, would she?"

"Good point," he muttered, and we got close enough for him to confirm that it was the girl from District Twelve before he loosed his javelin, getting her right in the chest. It didn't take long for the sound of the cannon to confirm the hit and the hovercraft came to scoop her up. We headed back to camp.

"You left the javelin in her again," I sighed, realizing that we were down another weapon.

Finley shrugged and said, "It's not a problem. We've got plenty back at the camp. Now that we're down to four of us we have more weapons and supplies between us. That'll probably increase the chances that one of us is going to win, especially since I haven't seen any good water anywhere that isn't straight from the packs."

It was true, we'd been keeping an eye out for somewhere to find water in case we ran out, but when we hadn't found anything on our several trips out into the arena we decided it would be easier to get it from sponsors. if we got sponsors, which I had full confidence that Finnick would be able to accomplish for me.

As we walked, there was another cannon and I raised an eyebrow at Finley but he just shrugged.

"Could be anyone," he pointed out reasonably. "Ligeia and Sebastien might still be out on the hunt, and Draven and his lackeys are fairly well-armed and a couple of them are decently talented. We're not the only ones killing people."

It felt strange to think in terms of kill or be killed, but it was what I had trained for, what I had volunteered for. Why had I done that? Something about glory and honor... It seemed fuzzy standing there in the hot sun of the arena.

Speaking of the hot sun, apparently the tributes weren't the only living things in the arena. A herd of lizards had destroyed the majority of supplies, we found, when we returned to camp. Only a few lingered when we got there and I managed to kill them quickly but our food and water stash was effectively down to what was in my pack.

My pack.

Finley and I looked at each other, realizing this at the same moment. My knife was on my belt, but the javelins were just behind him. It was quite clear to me from the look in his eyes that if I didn't get to him first, he would kill me for the pack on my back. I wasn't about to go down that easily.

I pulled out my knife, jumping on Finley, trying to keep him from the javelins, but he was struggling to much for me to actually stab him.

"Finley, you don't have to do this," I hissed. "Sebastien and Ligeia have supplies too! We're not going to starve, we have sponsors!"

"I'm not counting on that and you shouldn't either, Luke. You know," he growled, trying to push me off him so he could get to a javelin, "maybe they were right about you. Brutus said you were soft. You really don't have what it takes to win this thing. Why don't you let me stick you? You know between Sebastien and me I'm the one who's going to be nice about it. I'll make it quick and painless as I can."

Weak. The mentors thought I was weak, that I had no chance of winning.

I wasn't going to go out like that, letting Finley tell me I was going to lose anyway and then just letting him kill me. The shame of just giving up was not something I was going to subject my family to. A plan formed in my mind, though, and I began to loosen my grip, slowly moving off Finley, causing him to think that I'd given up, that I'd decided to let him kill me.

When he breathed a sigh of relief I knew I'd succeeded in tricking him, and probably all of Panem. Finley didn't bother scrambling to his feet, instead getting up slowly, turning slowly, moving quite slowly toward the javelins, giving me plenty of time to come up quietly behind him and slit his throat in one swift, fluid motion. Finley choked sickly, floundering as he fell to his knees in my arms, bleeding all over my hands, looking up at me with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said honestly. "I never wanted to kill you, but I'm not going to be the one who goes out without a fight. You got your District Twelve set. I hope your District forgives me."

"They will," he managed to choke out, sounding strangled and strange as the blood gushed and gurgled from his throat. "I do."

I nodded, wondering what to do, realizing he must be in a lot of pain. He was still blinking, the cannon wasn't coming, and so held up my knife questioningly, watching him nod just a little bit, and then I stabbed him hard in the chest, praying I hit my target.

The cannon sounded moments later, ensuring me that I put Finley out of his misery.

My misery, on the other hand, was far from over.

My hands were covered in Luke's blood, as was my knife, and I didn't want to risk using water that I could need later to clean them, so I got as much as I could get off with the sand and shuddered as I looked at my blood-stained hands. They weren't as bad, but I would probably spend the rest of my time in the Games thinking about how I'd killed Finley, the only person I'd actually come to think of as a friend an ally in the whole arena. I'd killed him in cold blood because... because... because he was going to kill me.

Finley couldn't have been my friend if he had been so willing to kill me, could he?

But then, I thought about Finnick, Mags, Scarlett, Blight, all the other mentors I saw them talking to when I was in the Capitol. Anyone who saw them couldn't think of them as anything other than friends, closer than most friends because of their shared experience as Hunger Games victors. On the other hand, only a fool would think that if you put all of those victors back into the arena together that they would do anything but kill each other without hesitation when the time was right, just as Finley had been ready to do to me.

Maybe he'd been my friend after all, but it didn't matter right then. I could mourn his loss later, when I had time and resources for guilt and wallowing. At that moment, I didn't even have the time and resources to keep myself alive for a few days. There was nothing for it: I had to learn how to hunt and I had to learn fast.

It couldn't be too different from killing a person, I thought to myself, rubbing more sand on my hands to trying cleaning them a bit.

It ran across my mind to spit on my hands and use that to clean them, but I wasn't sure if that would cause me to dehydrate faster. It was ironic to me that Finnick had asked me what I would do if there wasn't any water. He couldn't have known, of course, that I was going to end up being in the situation I found myself in, but he must have known it was a possibility, and I knew I wouldn't have thought about it otherwise.

I settled in, checking to see what was salvageable of our supplies, expecting to see Ligeia and Sebastien coming back to camp at any time. There wasn't much worth keeping, that wouldn't spoil quickly with having been broken into by the lizards.

There was another cannon fired and I looked around to see if the hovercraft was anywhere near me.

It wasn't. The body that was lifted into the air was also mauled, looking like something had gotten to it, either a brutal tribute or a muttation of some kind. I preferred to think it was a muttation, that we didn't have another Titus on our hands.

It grew darker and darker and still nobody returned to the site. I was growing worried. Had Ligeia finished off Sebastien and decided not to face us without him? Had lizards eaten them? Had they decided to abandon us and work together alone?

I rationed out the food as though I was the only person left needing our food, even then thinking it could be a long time until I managed to catch descent food. It wasn't much, but it would get me through the night.

The sound of the national anthem of Panem sounded and I looked up at the sky, wanting to see Finley's face one last time before I put it forcefully from my mind.

The first face, I was surprised to find, was Sebastien's. Then Finley. then Ligeia.

I really was alone.

Vin was shown, as well as the girl from District Six and the girl from District Twelve.

There were nine of us left after six days, and other than Catriona, who'd run off with Draven and his group, I was the only Career Tribute left.

I was pretty certain that nobody saw that coming, especially not me.

I went through the packs, reorganizing them, thinking over who was left of the tributes.

Draven, Catriona, Daisy, Maggie, Charlotte, Hannah, the boy from Nine, the boy from Three. Catriona was dangerous, that was certain, and Draven was maybe even more dangerous because I couldn't be sure what he would have learned or not in his life. Catriona would have been trained in much the same way Ligeia and I were, so I could more or less know what to expect from her.

Draven was a wildcard, as far as I was concerned, and he certainly had a lot of power on his side with such a large alliance.

I sighed, shivering. Deserts were cold at night, hot in the day. I'd learned that during training when we learned about how to deal with our environment. It was only going to get colder, but I could make do. What I couldn't make do without was water. I could go thirsty fast in the desert.

"I could use some water, Finnick," I sighed. "I can hunt, I can kill, I can collect the supplies of other tributes, but if I die of thirst I can't do any of that."

I didn't expect much. I wasn't sure if he'd even managed to get me a single sponsor. He hadn't sent me anything yet. I curled into a ball to get all my body heat feeding off itself, wishing I had a jacket or blanket or something to cocoon in, but alas I didn't have anything. We'd had a blanket, but Sebastien and Ligeia had brought it with them when we parted. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, giving the blanket to the pack the female would be using, but I had a sudden rush of anger at my own good manners. I should have kept it for myself.

There were no stars in the fake sky of the arena... the top of the arena. It was eerie, looking up at the false sky with no stars and a moon that was probably just a spotlight so that the cameras could pick up all of the action happening across the desert. I wondered what sort of action might be going on in the dead of night. Maybe somewhere someone was trying to light a fire, or was trying to find shelter form the lizards.

There was a thought. Did the lizards have the capability to be predators for the tributes? They certainly were capable of causing trouble for us, but eating us? The Capitol had created a long line of muttations, some dangerous, some more of a nuisance than anything, but while the lizards didn't seem dangerous, they still had the potential to come at me in a pack and rip me to pieces.

They also were potentially a quality source of food. I wasn't sure how edible lizards were, but they definitely had some meat on them which was more than the rocks that were around me. It was a chance.

I rolled over onto my side and saw a silver parachute fall right in front of me onto the sand. It was a sponsor gift, which meant that Finnick, and now Mags as well, had managed to get me some sponsors. Inside were a large canteen full of water and a large collection of iodine tablets to purify other water, which meant that there was bad water somewhere in the arena to be found, water that could be purified if I waited the full half hour. My heart began to race with hope.

"Thanks, Finnick," I muttered, pressing the canteen to my lips and taking a few small sips. It might have to last me a while, as the iodine would only go so far as well, and would only be useful if I managed to find water. And it would only be more expensive for sponsors to help me over time. I didn't want Finnick to use up all the gifts on water only for me to get blood poisoning or starve to death. So I put my canteen in the most protected part of my pack and slept with my knife in hand, just in case interesting things _did_ occur in the arena in the dead of night.


	11. A New Twist: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

I had to admit, Charlotte had done better than I'd expected. She was still alive.

Granted, only a couple of days had gone by, but an awful lot of tributes had died. She'd even killed that Ligeia from District Four that everyone had had such high hopes for. She bludgeoned her to death with a mace while Sebastien ran for his life like a whiny little coward in the face of Draven and his horde of armed female tributes, only to be eaten by the ferocious lizard muttations.

Draven himself had killed Vin, from District Eight. He'd caught him in that fancy rope he seemed to love using and then stuck him through with a harpoon. The prima donna was even less satisfied with the harpoon than he'd been with the longsword, and he left it in Vin's body, saying he'd use knives the next time.

Charlotte also killed the girl from District Six, whatever her name was. The mace again, of course. Whatever it was about that weapon, I had to admit she was pretty good with it, disturbing as it was to watch her bludgeon the life out of other girls. I was fairly certain that whether or not she won I'd be seeing her in my nightmares, coming at me with that bloody mace.

So Charlotte had three kills already, which was one more than I'd had by that point. I would have even been thinking of it, except that I knew she was. She was probably overjoyed with pride, staying up thinking about how the announcers must be praising how much better she was than I had been.

Of course, the announcers barely noticed her for Draven and Luke's amazing feats over the past few days. Charlotte's three kills were mentioned, of course, but they weren't big news. Several people had multiple kills, and one of them was a Career tribute.

She'd been getting plenty of attention, granted, and Blight had no trouble getting sponsors for her, especially the same people who were already spending exorbitant amounts to rent out my body for the night, and although Blight mentioned once or twice that they'd be more generous if I was the one trying to make the deals, he didn't press me to talk to the sponsors and I told myself that she was doing just fine with what she had to assuage my guilt. She probably wouldn't have wanted my help, anyway, given the choice.

Being around the other victors was exhausting enough on its own. Between Luke's worry, Haymitch and Blight and Chaff "keeping an eye" on me, and my own sickening feeling of guilt and self-disgust, watching the Games was about ten times worse than I would have previously imagined it could be. I wasn't just watching children kill each other; I was doing it as a way to attempt to forget about the men having their way with me nearly every night.

Nearly, of course, because even Capitol whores needed breaks, apparently. So my nightly visits to strange men who were becoming more and more recognizable were not exactly nightly, but they were the next worst thing.

I had been given many expensive gifts already, although I begged them not to do so. I had more money than I wanted, anyway, being a victor. I didn't need more pretty things. I didn't want any pretty things. I wanted it to all disappear when I closed my eyes, but somehow it only grew more visible, all of it, every disgusting detail.

They felt obligated to gift me, though, and so until I thought of some better way for them to alleviate their consciences, I would have to keep accepting the disgusting blood money, so to speak, of my affluent rapists. The jewels and the gold, the gilded personification of their guilt, was all heavy and harder to bear than I would have ever imagined.

I cherished nights off, although I wasn't really capable of sleeping properly, not between the Games and the nights _entertaining_ the sponsors. Even my dreams were plagued with blood, with fear. I woke up crying more often than not, so I didn't much see the point in going to sleep.

It had been a bit of a blur, going to various rooms nearly every night, meeting with a variety of Capitol men (although there were repeats, among the richest of them) and doing whatever they wanted. I hadn't gotten rid of my... what did they call it? My provincialism, my innocence, my... Oh, whatever the called it, it made me sick. Of course I'd lost my innocence! I was subjecting myself to rape night after night to spare the life of someone who would probably never speak to me again, and all for nothing. But I couldn't take it back. I couldn't explain, and she would want and explanation.

I had gotten to the point where I was jumping every time someone said my name and every time I looked at myself in the mirror I wanted to just die. I hated myself. I was disgusted by myself. I couldn't see myself as attractive anymore, I saw myself as a disgusting, hollow human being. I would look out the window of the twelfth floor and silently curse the Capitol for their force field. Surely they knew that I sat in a ball on the floor and cried almost every moment when I was alone. There was probably someone whose job it was just to watch me, to ensure that I was behaving 'properly', not trying to harm myself or behave rebelliously. They probably thought it was a great joke, my pain.

At least someone, somewhere was probably laughing.

Maybe that should have been a comforting thought. Maybe not.

Whether or not, I didn't find much comfort in it. I didn't find much comfort in anything anymore. Just pain.

As soon as I finished dinner on my night off I went into my room and showered, trying to get the feel of self-disgust to leave me alone.

When I came out of my shower I found Haymitch was sitting on my bed, watching for me expectantly. There I was in only my towel and somehow it didn't matter. It wasn't anything Haymitch hadn't seen before, that several men hadn't seen before, and all I wanted was to be left alone.

"Did you need something?" I said harshly, grabbing a hairbrush.

"No," Haymitch said calmly, "but you do."

I blinked. What was he talking about? What could he do for me?

"Come sit down, sweetheart," he said softly. "Please."

I slowly made my way over to him, thinking to myself that I'd never heard Haymitch say 'please' before. It sounded strange on his lips, a word he hadn't used since his youth, probably. He was sober, I realized with surprise as I sat beside him, awkwardly wondering what was going on. He turned to look at me and said, "It still hurts, doesn't it?"

My eyebrows shot up. How could he possibly know that? Every time one of those men had their way with me I was in pain. But how could he know?

"You're too tense," he said simply. "That's what's causing the pain. The fear and tension. I can feel good, you know."

I didn't know what to say, so I just snorted and said, "And I suppose you're some kind of expert?"

"No," Haymitch said softly, "but I want to help you, to teach you how to relax so it at least doesn't hurt."

The calm way he was looking at me told me that he saw nothing strange about saying he wanted to help me not feel pain while I was being violated by strangers.

"How do you plan to do that?" I demanded.

"Promise you'll do what I tell you and trust me," he said, "and I promise I'll make it more bearable. It's not going away, Scarlett."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Yes, I trust you," I said, and I realized it was true. I did trust Haymitch.

"And you'll do what I say," he said firmly.

"I suppose if you give me no other choice," I said with a sigh. Now what-?"

"Take off the towel," he said gently.

I blinked.

It wasn't that I was particularly adverse to him seeing what he'd seen before, but I was a bit taken aback that he'd basically told me so calmly to undress in front of him.

"I-"

Haymitch frowned, moving his hand to my towel, loosening it around my body as he said, "Relax, Scarlett. I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."

I found that I couldn't really stop him anyway, not because of fear exactly, but more curiosity. I wanted to know what he was going to do, and it left me rooted to the spot as the towel fell off around me, uncovering my body. Haymitch kept his gray eyes locked with mine as he brushed his fingertips along my neck and downwards to my chest.

And it felt... it felt surprisingly good, the way he lightly cupped my breasts in his hands, moving a bit closer to me.

"Not every man who's ever going to touch you, if you're lucky, is going to be paying somebody else for the pleasure," he said softly, "but whether that's their reasoning or not, you need to know how to at least pretend like you're enjoying what you're doing. Unbutton my shirt."

I swallowed heavily, my hands trembling as they reached for the buttons and fumbled, undoing them from top to bottom.

For someone who literally drank his life away, he wasn't horribly unfit. He stopped touching me long enough to shrug off the shirt and then stood.

"Sorry about this," he muttered, "but I'm sure it's expected..."

He didn't even have to finish his sentence. I unfastened and unzipped his pants, watching him shimmy out of the rest of his clothes. He was quite large, I realized, much larger than any of the men I'd had to meet up with, but he wasn't hard. In a way, that was almost reassuring. He found nothing exciting about having to sleep with a girl so much younger than him who was scared out of her mind.

"All right," he sighed. "Lay back on the bed. Get comfortable."

I did as I was told, nervous, a bit confused, and trembling with fear already. Haymitch followed me, crawling under the sheets beside me, his hand pulling me closer to him as I tried to calm my breathing.

"See," he whispered. "We've not even done anything and you're already panicking. I'm not going to hurt you, Scarlett. You need to relax. All right?"

Nodding, I tried to relax.

"Close your eyes," he said softly in my ear, and I did so. I gasped when I felt his lips on my neck. It felt... surprisingly good. "Relax," he whispered. "Imagine I'm whoever you want me to be."

But who did I want him to be, I wondered as his lips moved lower down my body. Finnick? Most girls in Panem would think so. That Draven who'd winked at me? There probably more than a few girls who would picture him as well. But I didn't know how I felt about anyone anymore, except that Haymitch seemed to care about me in his own way and I didn't mind him, so I decided to open my eyes and not picture anyone.

His mouth seemed to know what it was doing, kissing parts of my body that surprised me at their reaction to the sensation. When he parted my legs, I shivered nervously, but he whispered for me to relax again and he used his mouth and fingers to massage the area out of the tension that had filled my body, but instead an intense, overwhelming sensation of pleasure.

As his fingers dipped in and out, his thumb massaging some magic spot, he looked up and said, "Does it hurt?"

"No," I whispered truthfully.

"How does it feel," he whispered against my skin.

"Really, really good," I admitted, almost summoning enough presence of mind to care that my words came out more as a moan than anything else.

He smiled at me.

"Good," he said. "Now, I'm going to ask you to do something that's going to probably bother you, but I promise that it's a good idea to do it. It makes it more enjoyable as an experience for the man you're with, and the lubrication will make it hurt less for you, as well."

And then he proceeded to teach me how to get a man hard with my mouth.

He was right; it didn't hurt at all when he thrust inside me, and when it combined with the sensitivity from his previous actions, it actually felt quite good. Judging from the look on his face and the sounds escaping his lips, it felt pretty good for him, too.

And then something happened that had never happened before... Haymitch called it a climax, my version of when those men would cry out, explode inside me, and then be too tired to move. It felt so good that I could understand their crying out, and it certainly felt something like an explosion and left me feeling rather tired.

I realized that our bodies were covered in sweat as he rolled over, facing me, his arm draped over my waist as he caught his breath.

"The most important thing to not getting caught up is setting a boundary," Haymitch whispered when his breathing had calmed. "My recommendation, something I personally live by, is not to kiss someone you don't feel something for, not on the lips. That way, you can say to yourself that the part that means something hasn't happened and you don't feel so cheap."

That made a lot of sense, I decided, as I leaned my head on his chest and fell asleep with his arms wrapped comfortingly around me.

When my consciousness began to return the next morning, I could hear whispers and feel someone's warm arms around me.

Haymitch, I recalled. Haymitch was holding me. Haymitch had helped me. But who was whispering?

Haymitch was beginning to stir as well, and we lifted our heads simultaneously to see Blight and Chaff peaking at us through the bedroom door and whispering to each other. I groaned.

"Slept well, you two?" Blight teased. Chaff guffawed.

I groaned, rolling over tighter against Haymitch, who wrapped his arms more snuggling around me.

"Go away," I muttered. It felt so comfortable in the warmth of Haymitch's arms that I didn't want to get up. Besides, it couldn't be time for breakfast yet. I felt as though I'd barely closed my eyes a moment earlier.

There was even more laughter, but the door did close and I felt Haymitch nuzzle the side of my face with his nose.

A few peaceful minutes later, he whispered, "Sweetheart, it's time to be getting up. The day is about to start."

"I don't want to move," I moaned, feeling his fingers gently brushing the hair out of my face.

"Scarlett, you'll be expected. We both will. We need to make an appearance. It's part of our job."

His voice was so warm and gently, just like his hold on me and it made it even harder to open my eyes and look up at his face, admitting that he was right and we couldn't just sleep away the day like that.

"Will you be here again?" I whispered, feeling myself blush. "I mean, on one of my nights off?"

His face was usually hard, although it hadn't been since he appeared on my bed the night before. In that moment, though, his face softened even more.

"Sweetheart, I don't think that's a very good idea."

I felt like a child all over again, which I knew I was, in a way. I was old enough to be forced to give my body to rich old men, but I wasn't old enough, had I not already been a victor, to escape the reaping. Even though Haymitch's voice had been nothing but kind, I felt as though I'd been chastised for something.

"Why not?" I asked, still feeling like a child, small and stupid, probably naive to boot.

"Scarlett," he sighed, brushing a bit of hair from my face. "This isn't a good idea, keeping on like this. For me or for you, and you need to trust me."

I blushed.

"Not... not this. I mean... Well, I didn't have any nightmares last night and..."

I trailed off, knowing my face and neck were probably as red as my hair from the sad, knowing look he gave me.

"They won't go away that easily, sweetheart," he said almost gruffly. "You need to sleep on your own when you can. You wouldn't like the knife I sleep with normally."

I tried to laugh good-naturedly, but I couldn't, not properly. Haymitch was usually right, just as Blight and Mags and the other veterans were usually right. The longer they'd been around, the more right they usually were, and Haymitch had been around for about as long as I'd been alive. As much as I wanted him to hold me again, I knew he wouldn't because it wasn't right.

But I was grateful for his help all the same. I didn't know what it would amount to, but even a single night of proper sleep was worth something. I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to get another night's proper sleep, or how I was ever going to thank him for giving me the first one I'd had since my Games. I was determined to think of something.

"Thank you, Haymitch," I sighed, wrapping him up in a hug and sighing with relief when he wrapped his arms around her again with only brief hesitation.

"Any time, sweetheart," he whispered, kissing my hair gently and ignoring the fact that my tears were leaking down his bare chest.

Baby steps.


	12. Growing Concern: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

For several days, we had a bit of a weird dynamic on the twelfth floor. There was some joke going around between the veterans that I didn't get, but Scarlett seemed to, because every time Blight or Chaff started guffawing at something the other said, she would blush as red as her hair and Haymitch would glare at them through his drunken haze until they caught his glare and instantly stopped laughing.

Whatever it was, I had a hunch that it had something to do with whatever was going on with Scarlett. Of course I never seemed to know how to figure out what exactly that was, but I figured that she'd tell me with time.

Days four through six had no deaths, but it didn't keep us from chattering about what was going on in the Games, from Charlotte trying to charm Draven to the survival odds of those who were left, to those who had already died.

"Well, Ligeia was one of my more promising tributes," Mags muttered. "Still Catriona and Luke..."

"Yeah," I sighed. "But I don't think Luke can last the week."

"He's got food, water," Scarlett said with a shrug. "He's pretty handy with that knife. It's certainly not looking too bad for him."

"He's not got anybody watching his back," I argued.

"He's got you," she said with a shrug. "All I needed to win was Blight, so if you and Mags do your job properly, he's got a chance."

"He's got no survival skills," I argued. "And he can't work long-range. There's no one to distract others, which is why ne needs someone to watch his back."

"Someone watching your back can be someone sticking a knife in it later, children," Callie teased. "Why don't you stop chattering and watch. Charlotte just tripped over her own feet into a pack of sleeping lizards."

She got away with some scratches and probably a fair amount of psychological damage, but it was a good show, and I couldn't help but notice the way it made Scarlett grin, and that had to count for something.

After that, we stayed pretty quiet and watched the Games. We knew it wouldn't be long until the Gamemakers did something to really drive them together so that the deaths would start up again, but what they would do, we weren't sure. There wasn't anything to burn, no water to flood with, no mountain to create avalanches for...

But there were always muttations. The Gamemakers loved wreaking havoc with muttations, especially when all they had was a bit of bad water and possibly some heat. I couldn't recall if I'd ever seen someone drop dead of heat on the Games, but I knew it had been known to happen. Certainly, anything was possible, and I couldn't imagine what sort of things the Gamemakers were getting ready for spectacular showmanship. It seemed to be all anybody in the Capitol cared about for the purpose of the Games, how good of a show they were getting.

I could still almost picture the lizards as they attacked the food of the Careers. It made me proud of my own decision to ally with non-Careers. If that had happened while I was there, I didn't doubt Mags's ability and desire to take care of me, but it would have made it a lot more difficult, especially with Stella sucking sponsor dollars from a lot of very wealthy people. Scarlett, at least, hadn't had a lot of competition in the money department, being as pretty as she was. Nobody else stood a chance once Blight took care of her food.

Luke, though, he would need to figure out how to get food, water... He had a bit, but if history was any indication of how long it was going to last, he wasn't going to make it through the Games on what he'd salvaged from the lizard attack. Mags and I were going to have to find a way to help him eat and drink. The sponsors loved the way he'd dealt with Finley and the food situation, but there was no way he was going to get the kind of buzz and support Draven had already built up.

There had been an awful lot of people clambering to support Draven, especially those who had supported Scarlett. They seemed to think that by letting him survive, somehow Draven would manage to charm Scarlett and they could be the first tribute pair who would date, marry, and make little titanium tribute babies who would win Hunger Games in years to come. They wanted that fairytale love story and the great shows that would be caused by the children being tributes in the future.

For some reason, I hated the idea of Draven winning much more than the idea of Luke losing.

And I knew it was because of the fascination with which Scarlett watched Draven, and maybe it was also because of the way he'd looked at her when the tributes had been around, the way he'd talked about her during his interview... Some people might have thought it was some sort of angle to get sponsors, but I knew that look well enough, seeing my parents look at each other that way. Draven really did hold a torch for Scarlett, and I didn't know if it was mutual or not, but in her current, unreadable state of mind, he might even be able to take advantage of her.

And I certainly didn't like that thought. Although I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

"Scarlett, what do you think of the way he uses that lasso?" Blight teased. "Pretty handy."

"Yeah," she said derisively as we watched Draven snag a lizard with his lasso and stab it with a knife. "If you like killing prey that doesn't move. Doesn't take any more skill than cutting a limb off a tree. Charlotte's mace takes more skill than that. At least she's got struggling prey."

There was an awkward feeling in the room after that, like we knew where she was coming from but knew it was a bit morbid and sick of us to necessarily agree with her. The lack of conviction in her voice where Draven was concerned compared with the hatred when she talked of Charlotte, was absolutely disgusting. I didn't know what her feelings about him were, and it seemed she didn't know, either.

But Scarlett was still keeping a lot of secrets from me, it seemed. Bags under her eyes, jumpy when anyone but Haymitch so much as accidentally brushed against her, and a severe lack of appetite that Haymitch seemed to be trying to talk her out of. I had grown used to seeing Scarlett eat half the table, but she was barely touching a thing, and that alone was enough to worry any one of us, but what worried me even more was the fact that I seemed to be the only one out of the loop. I didn't get the joke, I didn't know what was wrong, and I didn't know how to help her.

I felt so helpless, so useless, so small. What sort of a friend was I if I couldn't even manage to help when it counted?

"Maybe they'll do something interesting soon," Scarlett sighed as we had dinner on the sixth night. "I'm getting sick of doing interviews talking about Charlotte. Maybe they'll have her get eaten by lizards this time."

I couldn't help but laugh a little at that, and so did the others, especially a guffawing Haymitch, chuckling to himself at the end of the table as he spilled his drink all over his jacket. As much as we tried not to make those sorts of jokes, we had all come to agree with Scarlett's extreme distaste for Charlotte. She was a nasty, unethical sort of girl, which had a way of bringing out the absolute worst in a person in circumstances like the Hunger Games. Draven seemed to be her one weakness, but he was the weakness of several female tributes.

If he won, I could see him quickly becoming the weakness of a few female victors, Scarlett included.

"Somehow," Chaff muttered, putting down his drink to pick up his fork with his one arm, "I think those particular muttations aren't equipped to actually take down a human, and they don't tend to let the animals destroy the bodies."

That was true. They liked to gather up the bodies of the tributes, collect them in hovercraft and do who knows what with them. Maybe they gave them back to the families of the dead. Maybe they burned them. Maybe they buried them somewhere. Maybe they conducted some sort of tests on them. With the Capitol, the possibilities were limitless.

An Avox came in, setting a sealed note beside Scarlett's hand that she looked at as though it were about to bite her. I leaned forward a bit before I realized I'd done it, frowning.

With a slightly shaking hand, Scarlett picked up the note, broke the seal, and read it rather close to her face, eyes moving fast. She gave a small sigh and said, "I guess I've got an interview. I've got to get out of here." She stood quickly, not even sparing a second look for her barely-touched plate. "See you guys tomorrow."

I watched her leave, echoing the sentiment that filled the room that she sleep well, which was sort of an empty wish that we all gave each other. We all knew that none of us was going to sleep well on any night.

"Is she okay?" I asked. "I know there's something going on with her that nobody's telling me."

They looked at each other. They looked at me. They looked at each other again and then looked down at their plates. This was getting me nowhere all over again.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Yeah, I figured that wasn't going to work. I feel like something bad's happening and there's nothing I can do. Why won't you tell me?"

"Finnick," Callie said softly, "it's not for us to tell you. It's not our story, it's Scarlett's."

"Callie," I said, feeling the aggravation coursing through me all over again, but I was cut off.

"Listen, Finnick," Blight said softly, "whether Scarlett wants to tell you, you'll know sooner than you'd think what's going on, and I promise you that when you get to that point, you're not going to want to know so badly. You're going to wish you didn't know. We all wish we didn't know, but you're going to wish it even more. I can promise you that."

"Just a tip, though," Chaff growled, putting down his fork to pick up his spoon for the soup. "When you do know, take good advice."

They were being so cryptic, so negative, and I didn't know what to do about Scarlett. Nobody was telling me anything, and it seemed unlikely that Scarlett would be called in for an interview in the dead of night while everyone was sleeping.

I didn't know what to make of it, though, so I shook my head and decided not to try. I looked down at my plate, suddenly feeling not hungry at all. I wondered if that was the feeling Scarlett felt when she looked at food recently. It was certainly the reaction she had, not eating a bite.

Whatever her meeting was, Scarlett didn't come back that night, true to her word, and as I climbed into bed, unsure of what to expect Scarlett to be like when I saw her in the morning I tried to calm my mind, tried to think of anything except the faces of all the dead tributes I'd come across since the Hunger Games became a part of my way of life. I frowned, finding it harder than usual to block Stella's face from my mind. I didn't want to think about what was going to happen the next day.


	13. Alive: Luke

**A/N: Luke's POV**

At the beginning of the seventh day, I woke up to someone standing over me with a short sort of hunting sword.

"Good morning, Catriona," I moaned, making to sit up and finding that she'd moved the blade directly to my throat.

"Hello, Luke," she said with a smirk. "I have to say, I didn't think you'd still be alive, but that just proves that even the best of us can make a mistake."

I nearly snorted, but I wasn't in much of a position to be making light of her extreme self-confidence. After all, she was still alive. She was certainly not the worst. For all I knew, she could be the best. We'd yet to actually determine that.

"Some of the biggest braggers have been among the first to die each year," I said as calmly as I could, getting my knife where I could use it as quickly as I could without alerting her to what I was doing.

She was so distracted by my words that she didn't even seem to notice that I had a knife in hand. With a deep breath, before she had a chance to stick me like she so obviously wanted to, I carefully and forcefully sliced the biggest wound I could manage onto her calf.

Catriona stumbled backward and cried out in pain.

I could barely believe that I'd downed her, and I wondered whether I should leave her to bleed or die of infection, or just slit her throat or stab her chest, putting her out of her misery. I frowned, unsure of what action to take, but she was scrambling for her sword and I didn't have much time to make some sort of decision.

She made to swing the sword at me and I dodged it.

Maybe I would have to fight her after all, I realized, wondering how strong she might be, able to wield a sword with surprising strength and agility for someone who'd basically been given what was a death sentence in the arena. Sure, people had come back from worse, but usually only on the final day or close to it. We had too many people left for it to be a minor thing.

"Stand still so I can kill you, Luke," she hissed.

"What happened to Draven and his girls?" I snarled back, dodging another swing. "I thought you had allies, Catriona."

"Allies are overrated," she said, grinning through gritted teeth. "All yours are dead, obviously. Guess that alliance didn't do you a lot of good."

"And yours did you so much better?" I gasped, dodging another swing, trying to circle around and see if I could get closer without risking the blade. There didn't seem to be any way to get the upper hand with her.

"Oh, well enough," Catriona growled, obviously holding onto the little bit of strength she had left. "I figure if I die, Luke, I'm taking you down with me. I don't want to leave the arena empty-handed."

"Oh, you're not empty-handed," I spat, dodging her sword once more, although she managed to nick my arm then. "You already killed Violet, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Catriona squealed. "I mean, didn't you want to kill her too? She thought she was so pretty, so special. There was nothing special about her, just like there's nothing special about you. Ligeia, she was special, wasn't she? But she's dead. Special, not special, it doesn't make a difference. We're all going to die."

"Not all of us," I growled, pushing her away from me with a sharp shoulder to her chest. "You're acting mad."

"You think I'm crazy?" she laughed. "Let's face it, Luke, Draven's going to come out of this alive, and the rest of us are going to die. He keeps his hands clean unless he knows he can win. He's got enough human shields, willing or only half-willing to protect him with their own lives. Nobody, not a one of us can stand up to that, no matter how good and numerous our sponsors are."

I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to give up on my life so easily, and the same desperation that ran through me just before I killed Finley was coursing through me once more.

"I'm not going to believe that," I spat up at her. "As long as I've not been stuck through I've got a chance, and so do you! Do you really think you're going to die?"

"Oh, Luke, dear, I know it!" she laughed, and then I knew she had to have gone insane. What drove her insane? Thirst? Hunger? Despair? There were so many things, which made me worry a fair amount about my own mind. Was her mind just fragile? Was mine?

I ducked another blow, without time to breathe a sigh of relief.

It was hard not to wonder as we battled, what the sponsors and mentors were making of this, because unless someone else was in the process of actually dying we were sure to be featured on all the screens in Panem as we tried to kill each other and not be killed. Catriona had been such a good bet when the betting began, and I had been a tough sell. No, I hadn't killed her yet, but I had reasonably good faith in my ability to do so.

And then I turned slightly, finding that spot right between her ribs and distracting her, pretending I was going one way and then changing direction at the last second, shoving my knife into her with a single thrust at a forty-five degree angle, just enough force to pierce her heart and the cannon blast told me I'd hit my mark just as her eyes glazed with surprise and death.

Catriona fell to the floor of the desert and I pulled my knife out, cleaning it off with the sand that wasn't already staining with her blood. I would move on when I'd had a chance to catch my breath.

When I'd gotten myself better I started walking, knowing that the hovercraft would be coming in for her body. I didn't want to make them wait, and I had no desire to sit and watch her corpse grow hot in the daytime arena sun. I wanted to see if there was some sort of food or water source somewhere so I didn't have to keep receiving handouts from Finnick and my sponsors. I didn't want to look like a weakling if I could find some sort of way to survive on my own skill.

It was hard to walk, though, and I was losing blood from a small but not exactly shallow cut on my right arm. I sat down and cut a strip of fabric off the bottom of my pants, tying it around the spot, trying not to tie it off to tightly with my teeth, but it wasn't easy to do. I wasn't going for a tourniquet, but sometimes you do what you can. I would have liked an ally very much in that moment.

I kept walking, the hot sun beating down on my face, making me sweat, making me wish I didn't have so much fabric, but at least it was cotton, breathable.

There weren't too many of us left, I reasoned. There couldn't be. When I counted, I discovered I was right: Anselm, from District Three; myself; Charlotte, from Seven; Maggie, from Eight; Alexander and Daisy, from District Nine; Draven; and Hanna, from Eleven. Eight of us.

Interviews of family and friends would begin. My sister and parents would be on screen. I didn't have too many friends. I suppose the boys I studied and trained with would be called friends, although we weren't particularly close.

Ligeia had had lots of friends. If she had made it to the last eight instead of me, she would have had lots of people to talk about her and how wonderful she was. I never really thought she was all that wonderful, but I supposed it didn't really matter much anymore.

I hadn't found any water yet, but I'd certainly found shade under a large rock, wondering which direction I should try next, once I'd had a bit to eat and drink, and had a little time to rest.

Half of the remaining tributes were boys, half girls. I wasn't sure if that meant anything for my chances. Charlotte could be just as deadly as Draven under the right circumstances, and probably deadlier than Anselm. I also wasn't sure what state Draven's 'alliance' of sorts was in, especially given Catriona's strange words and behavior. Had she gone mad and detached herself from the group, had then kicked her out, or had the whole group gone their separate ways already? After all, I was the only Career left standing and -

... I was the only Career left standing.

How had that happened? I wasn't even supposed to be alive, much less the last of the Careers.

Before I had a chance to really parse out how I'd managed to make it so far, though, I heard a piercing, frantic scream coming from not very far away at all.

While everything in me wanted to stay sheltered under my rock, I knew that the rock wouldn't be very good protection from Draven or Charlotte if they were nearby killing... who? Maggie? Daisy? Hanna? I supposed it could have been Charlotte screaming, but somehow I didn't think so. Not so soon. She was, if I remembered correctly, fairly well armed.

The only thing to do was to find out what was going on, as best as I could without being seeing, so I would know if I needed to run and find some other rock to rest under.

Slowly, carefully, I came out from my shade, squinting as the brightness of the arena's sun hurt my adjusting eyes. Once I was able to see normally, I ran toward the screams, wondering who would be taking so long in killing a fellow tribute. I supposed I wouldn't put it past either Draven or Charlotte, so I would operate under the assumption that one of them was the killer.

What I hadn't expected to find, once the screaming stopped, was a figure surrounded by lizards. The cannon blast sounded and I realized that it wasn't a tribute kill: it was someone who'd been killed by the lizard muttations. Unsure what to do, I looked around me and found a reasonably sized rock, picked it up, and tossed it into the center of the lizards. As I watched them scatter I hid behind a boulder, not wanting to be their next victim. Several moments later, I came back out and saw a mangled body that looked feminine.

As I got closer I realized it was Hanna from District Eleven, although it wasn't easy to tell at first. She was so deformed from the feeding of the lizards that it took me a moment to figure out for sure that it was a female. I frowned.

That didn't seem a way to die to me, but I wasn't sure how I would have wanted to die, so maybe it wasn't any worse than however I would die. I felt guilty that I hadn't been there to finish her off, put an end to the screaming. I didn't like the thought of how much pain she must have been in before the end, as I was trying to find out what was going on and who was dying.

"I can do this," I whispered, turning away and deciding to start looking for water again. "I can win. I can do this."

But it was starting to look harder every minute. Each step closer to victory some new surprise came along and I wasn't sure if I would manage to make it to the end at the rate things were going. I could hear the hovercraft coming in for Hanna's body and I shook my head.

I wanted to go home.

But I couldn't go home, so as I walked I began to think over my competition.

Anselm was from District Three. He was just a boy, twelve years old. He obviously was clever, though, and knew how to hide, since he'd made it so long. The question was how would he survive? It wasn't the tributes I thought would get him, but the arena. I didn't expect he would be skilled at hunting or finding food, and I had yet to find water. What was more, I didn't expect he had too many people clambering to give him sponsorship.

Charlotte had a chance, I knew. She hadn't scored any higher than Anselm, but that was because she didn't any concept of finesse. In a different arena, of course, she might have needed it, but as things turned out finesse wasn't exactly a necessary quality for survival in the sixty-seventh arena. Charlotte also had age on her side, being seventeen if I recalled correctly. And she obviously had some weapon she could wield. I was sure she'd killed that girl from District Five - what was her name? - Delight. That meant she had a weapon of some sort.

Maggie was probably only alive because of Draven's protection. She'd killed Blake, but she'd caught him off guard in the chaos of our shocking upset of a bloodbath. I had no doubt that she wouldn't have managed such a feat in typical combat. Was there such a thing as typical combat? Surely there must be. Human nature, wasn't it, fighting?

Alexander wasn't truly a surprise. He was strong, reasonably skilled. I wasn't sure if he was hiding out somewhere or just waiting for someone to come to him, but he hadn't seemed to be incredibly aggressive as of yet. Maybe he was waiting for something, or maybe he just didn't see the point in getting in the fray when the rest of us were more than willing to kill each other off. I suspected that if I stumbled across him, though, he wouldn't hesitate to defend his territory. I certainly hoped I wouldn't stumble across him.

Daisy was another under the protection of Draven. She was far weaker than Charlotte, though, and I was almost certain that she wouldn't be able to survive on her own. That made me wonder how long it would be until Draven either disbanded his alliance and they went their separate ways or he simply just tied them up in their sleep and killed them. Either way, that day would spell the end of Daisy; I had no doubt that day was very, very soon.

That left Draven himself to consider, and I didn't need to be reminded of how dangerous he was, just on charm alone. I had sponsors, sure, but if I did than so did Draven. A tribute couldn't not with his looks, charm, and obvious ability to turn things to his advantage. He had to be the favorite to win. I wasn't sure how I felt about someone else being the favorite, but I knew I wasn't surprised. After all, I'd had two different tributes basically tell me to let them kill me because I had no chance of winning, anyway. There were probably plenty of people in the Capitol who had agreed with them, but I wondered if they'd still agree after watching me kill both.

I wandered through the desert, still not finding water. Was it possible that they'd built and entire arena without it? That seemed like poor foresight. But then, maybe they figured that if nothing else we could all die of thirst and the last one standing after the blood and lack of water would be winner. Or just someone with excellent sponsors.

Except that wouldn't be the end of it, I knew as I found a rock to rest on for a few moments in my search for water, which was looking more and more like a fool's errand. Draven and I were sure to have plenty of water from our sponsors, and Charlotte might as well. With that in mind, it would be our combat skills and not our sponsors or survival skills, that would be the determining factor for victory.

After a short rest, I realized I was hungry. About ten seconds after I decided I needed to eat, I remembered that I was out of meat. I could do without it for a day or two, certainly, but then I was either going to have to hunt it down or I was going to have to hope Finnick wasn't using up all my sponsor money on water.

I decided it would be better to find a lizard.

Recalling what had happened to Hanna, I gathered up some stones in preparation and went looking for a lizard pack.

It wasn't hard to find one, and praying that I wouldn't miss, because I wasn't stupid enough to get too close to them, I tossed my knife as best I could, hitting one of the lizards squarely in the belly by sheer luck. Quickly, I began tossing the rocks in the general direction of the lizard I'd hit, both making sure it was dead and scattering off the other lizards so that by the time I approached my kill, I was left with a single dead lizard in empty sand to deal with.

I cooked it over a small, smoky fire that I put out as soon as I thought it was cooked well enough that I wouldn't get sick and then I sat back, ate my meat, drank a bit of water, and watched the projections of faces on the sky sandwiched between the seal of the Capitol.

Two faces. Catriona and Hanna, and I had been the last person to see both of them alive. I wondered if the betting would go up on me in the morning, or if I was still destined to lose, and then I fell asleep.


	14. The Other Shoe: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

Two days had passed since the deaths of Hanna and Catriona. Watching Hanna get literally eaten to death by lizards had been a shocking thing to many, including Finnick, but I found that it took quite a lot to shock me, anymore. Finnick had the luxury I didn't of still being allowed, in some ways, to be a child. The arena didn't shock me. Nothing the Gamemakers came up with would faze me anymore, I knew. Haymitch, too, had been disinterested in the lizards and their actions, but then, he'd seen Titus eating his victims. He'd seen all sorts of things through his haze of booze. He was like me, in a way.

There was something less than comforting in the thought that Haymitch and I were almost kindred spirits, but I'd long since given up on a search for comfort. Blight hadn't tried to comfort me anymore, and Chaff had even given up teasing me. Perhaps that was his own sort of comfort.

Luke and Draven and Charlotte were the obvious choices to bet on for anyone with eyes. Even though there were no kills on days eight and nine, they were the ones capable of hunting, the one with sponsors sending them water, the ones on the offensive rather than hiding behind rocks and praying the lizards didn't catch them.

I watched them over the rim of my cup as I sipped orange juice, no longer making Blight do all of the work with the sponsors for me. It hardly bothered me anymore, to have to see the men who pawed me at night during the day. Wear the bracelet in case I see the bald one. The necklace in just in case of Lagunov. And if they ask, "Oh, yes, it's my favorite gift! I wear it every day!"

I didn't have a favorite gift, but they didn't make my skin crawl and burn with self-disgust and anger as they had when I first started receiving them. They were tools. I knew there had to be better tools, things they could give me of more value, but I had yet to think of what it would be, so I simply used what they did give me to bargain for Charlotte, to gain favor for her, although none of them seemed to care very much about her, and I couldn't really blame them. They were doing it for me, and I was doing it because I had to.

But that hadn't mattered when I was sitting with the other victors in our little Games-watching group around the screen. The sponsors didn't matter. The fact that Finnick and I were technically in competition didn't matter. For a while I could almost see what the people of the Capitol loved so much about watching the Games. It was an escape, a chance to live through someone else's struggles, to feel their emotions without having to internalize their pain, especially as I had enough of my own.

That, and I loved fantasizing about Draven bludgeoning Charlotte to death with her own mace.

Perhaps it was wicked of me, as Blight and Finnick liked to tease as they watched me watching eagerly every time Charlotte set her mace down for any reason, wishing someone else would pick it up, but if they'd known her as I knew her they would have been wishing it too.

She didn't set her mace down very often, and I really didn't blame her. There was no trusting anyone in the arena, and especially not someone like Draven, who had literally abandoned Catriona to fight her way out of lizards as a kindness, deciding not to kill her himself.

It was hard not to sympathize as Charlotte all but slept with one eye open, especially on day eight, after seeing Catriona's face in the sky the night before, probably assuming it was the lizards that got her, not Luke. From what I could tell, Charlotte and Draven didn't really see Luke as a threat, but that was more deduced from their not talking about him than by anything in particular they had said, so I could have been reading it wrong.

"No," Finnick had said one night as we were taking the elevator back down to our own floors. "I think you're right. He's been underestimated by everyone."

But Draven didn't seem to me the type to underestimate someone. He struck me more like Haymitch, completely able to understand everything and everyone around him, fully aware of his surroundings and situation and more than capable of taking advantage of every part of it. Luke couldn't stand up to him, I was sure, if I was right about him, and I thought I was.

I had gotten very good at reading people since I'd become the Capitol's whore.

Day nine had been even less exciting than eight, but Charlotte had relaxed a bit, which I had hoped would have led to her death, but alas, not yet.

At least, it wasn't interesting on the screen, in the arena. It had become so easily to denote my life based on what was happening in the arena (three people died - it was an exciting day; no one died - nothing happened). But that wasn't the extent of my life, of course. I interacted with a lot of people in the course of my day, and in many different capacities: fellow victors, clients, sponsors.

This was really my life, and as easy as it was to try to forget that it happened, it wouldn't do any good to ignore reality. Besides, by the standards of my own real life, the ninth day was entirely too eventful, too interesting, for anyone's tastes, I was sure of it.

Finnick and I had gotten into a habit where he would come down to wake me if when he got up to watch the Games I wasn't already there. Blight didn't like waking me after he'd found me in bed with Haymitch, although he'd never said as much aloud and Finnick certainly didn't know anything about that, nor had it happened again.

It was Finnick's birthday, as it turned out, and he greeted me with a big smile on his face.

"Hurry up!" he cried. "Get dressed! I want to see who dies on my birthday!"

In any other life context, that probably would have sounded like the most horrible, morbid thing ever, but I was too tired from the night I'd spent out with one of my clients to really care much about it.

Besides, we were victors. We were all a bit loopy, just by definition.

"All right," I sighed. "I'll get dressed and be right out."

"I'll wait in your living area," Finnick said excitedly. "Hurry up!"

I did hurry, but not because he asked me to or because I cared that much about getting up to see the Games. There was some sort of urgency I couldn't name or explain driving my haste, and it felt a bit like foreboding, but I hoped against hope that it wasn't.

I should have known better than to hope.

Not even a moment after I'd stepped out into the living area of the seventh floor, ready to go watch the Games, President Snow entered in the flesh and my heart stopped for a moment. Fear crawled through my veins.

"President Snow," Finnick said, kindly but suspicious, and I couldn't blame him.

"Finnick Odair," President Snow replied, smiling a smile that made me want to scream and vomit all at once.

"Should I go, President?" I said in my sugary-sweet Games voice, knowing instinctively that he'd come for Finnick, not for me. I didn't want to be there for it, anyway.

President Snow turned to me and said, "Why bother, Scarlett, when Finnick would tell you everything I say, anyway? Please, by all means, stay."

I knew that was a stab at me, pointing out how I'd not told Finnick when Snow had come to me, but how could I have done? What could I have said? He could never have understood.

My hands trembled as I sat beside Finnick.

Finnick Odair had just turned sixteen, and I was pretty sure I knew what came next. He was about to get the talk _I_ got only days before my Victory Tour. The talk that made my hate myself and everyone else for weeks.

"Finnick, I'm sure you've noticed that the Capitol is quite taken with you."

That was an understatement. It had been clear that the men and women of the Capitol had been waiting to sink claws and teeth into him since he'd had his first interview in the 65th Games.

"There have been a lot of people waiting for you to turn sixteen."

Finnick frowned.

"What do you mean?"

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I didn't to be there for this.

"Finnick, have you known a woman?"

"N-no..."

"We'll start you off small, then," Snow said with a serpentine smile. "There have been lots of orders for you already. We can afford to arrange experience before you meet the highest-paying customers."

A look of understanding spread across Finnick's face and he turned to me, horrified. I wanted so badly to be able to tell him that it was _not_ what he thought it was, that everything would be all right. But that would have been a lie, because I knew nothing would ever be all right again.

"What if I say no?" Finnick said in a defiant sort of voice I'd only heard him use when Haymitch was picking on him.

That insipid smile widened. I nearly shivered as President Snow turned to me.

"Scarlett," he said smoothly, "would you like to tell Finnick the penalty of refusing?"

That sick, sick man, delivering his threats with my voice. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to leave us alone, but he had already killed my family, was willing to kill my former friend, maybe even me. I wasn't ready to die yet, selfish as that was.

Because was it really better to live as the Capitol's pawn and whore than to die? I wasn't sure.

"He'll kill everyone," I whispered. "All my family is dead. My father, my sisters, my brothers, my... my niece."

Finnick winced. He'd been so fond of her, and she'd been barely four years old.

"So you understand now your situation," Snow said. Finnick nodded stiffly. "Good. I'll be in touch. Have a lovely day, the both of you."

As soon as Snow left the room, I could no longer hold in my tears. Finnick wrapped his arms around me, rocking me gently and petting my hair.

I'm glad he didn't try to tell me everything would be okay. We were well past such lies by that point.

"I wanted to be normal again," I whispered into his chest, watching my teardrops cling to his shirt, hating myself all over again. "I wanted to go back to reading with my brothers and playing with my cat and being unhappy but _normal_. But the Games are just the beginning of our being the playthings of the Capitol. I just want to be a person again."

Finnick put his hand below my chin and lifted it to make me look up at his beautiful sea-green eyes.

"You _are_ a person," he whispered, leaning down to my ear. "You are a wonderful, beautiful person."

No lies, in his eyes. No reassurances he couldn't deliver on.

It was refreshing, in a way, but there were things I couldn't tell Finnick, not yet. Things that would make him hate me, I was sure of it. Things I had been carefully not thinking about to get through the days, but at Finnick's fate, so much like my own, I could no longer pretend that nothing was hurting, no longer block myself from thinking about things that I knew must be thought about, eventually.

Pain must be felt, sooner or later, and sooner hurts less.

I told Finnick to go watch without me, that I felt the sudden urge to take a shower, which was true. I wanted to drown in the shower. But instead I turned on the cold water, stepped into the freezing waterfall, and closed my eyes tightly, trying to pretend that I wasn't as despicable as I'd felt.

There was the sound of someone coming into my room, and I assumed it was an Avox to change my sheets and take my nightclothes to be cleaned. Perhaps they were straightening things out. Perhaps Blight had come looking for me. Did it matter?

I stayed in the shower for probably an hour before my whole body was numb from the cold and I couldn't stand it any longer. I turned off the water with a shaking hand and stumbled out, grabbing a towel but not bothering to dry off as I headed back into my room.

There, sitting on my bed, waiting for me, was a half-sober Haymitch, watching me with knowing eyes.

"Does it feel any better now?" he asked. "Or do you still wish you'd told him the truth before today?"

Perhaps he ought to have known what was coming, just as I had wished that someone would have told me, but I had done it for the same reasons no one had warned me.

"He deserved a few extra weeks of childhood," I whispered, still not bothering to cover or dry myself, standing there dripping in the middle of my bedroom as Haymitch watched me with half-glazed eyes. "I couldn't be the one to take that from him."

Haymitch nodded and didn't blame me for my decision, didn't point out how much I'd hated it when it had been done to me, because he knew it wouldn't have been helpful.

"Here," he finally sighed, getting up and taking the towel, drying me off. "You'll catch something."

"In the sterile walls of the training facilities?" I snorted. "Haymitch, the only thing I could possibly catch is some sort of venereal disease, and they'd cure me so I could go on being their little money-making whore."

He smiled ironically and wrapped the towel around my shoulders like a cape once I was more or less dry.

"Blight says you've figured out how to talk with sponsors now. I take it you've resigned yourself to life?"

"It's not life!" I cried, throwing the towel down angrily. "It's not _living_, Haymitch! I hate myself every day, but I just tried not to think about it. Now I _have_ to think about it! Finnick's going to need someone to talk to, and he's more comfortable with me than with you or Mags about something like this, I know it. I can't keep pretending that it's a nightmare, some other life that I'm living that doesn't matter. It matters and it hurts!"

"Good," he said softly, pulling me in to hug me, whispering softly in my ear. "Hold onto that hurt, Scarlett. Don't let it kill you, but don't let it go. This probably doesn't need saying, but I will, just in case. You need to do for Finnick what I did for you."

"But-"

"No," he said, cutting me off, whispering urgently in my ear. "He needs you, Scarlett. It will be better for both of you if you have someone to lean on in this, and you can't lean on me forever. You can't really even lean on me properly now. I'll still be here for you, but this needs to be something you two struggle through together, all right?"

"You make it sound as though there's a chance it will be over someday," I muttered, leaning my head on his chest, letting him hold me there like a child needing shelter. It was how I felt, so why not?

"Maybe it will be, someday," he said carefully.

What did he mean by that, I wondered. Were those words meant as words of comfort? Did he mean that when we got older no one would want us anymore and we would be free? Was he talking about death? Was he speaking treasonously about Panem and the Capitol?

Part of me wished it were the last one, but I didn't want anything to happen to him. Still, it was nice to think that maybe there was a chance that the next generation would only know about the Hunger Games because of stories they'd read in history books, not because of the Games they watched every summer and the reaping lines they stood in and the grain on their tables bought by extra slips in the reaping balls.

At least my brothers wouldn't be in the Games, I thought bitterly. And my niece. At least they'd died without knowing the horrors of the arena, without fully understanding my own nightmares.

"I hope you're right," I whispered, clutching at his shirt, wrinkling it into the balls of my fists as I shivered slightly in his strong, warm arms.

Maybe I'd just spoken treasonously too. After all, I was hoping he'd meant the end of the Games, the end of Capitol rule as we knew it. But we'd been so ambiguous that it would have been hard for anyone watching on the cameras I knew must have been on us to know for sure what we meant. Maybe I was hoping that people would lose interest in me, for all they knew.

But that wouldn't be happening for a very long time.

"Go on," Haymitch finally said. "Get dressed. Blight's handling the sponsors today, but you'll want to watch the Games, to keep an eye on Finnick. Right?"

"Right," I muttered in reluctant agreement. I didn't want any of those things. I wanted to stay wrapped up in the safety of Haymitch's arms where I didn't feel like such a failure.

"Good," he said, moving toward the door, but pausing to look back at me with his hand on the knob. "Chin up, sweetheart."

And then he left me alone to dress and cry.


	15. Coping: Finnick

**A/N: Finnicks POV**

Everyone was right. Knowing is not easier. Knowing makes it hard to watch the Games. Knowing makes it hard to think about Scarlett without pity and disgust - not at her, but at the men who paid for her. Knowing made me disgusted with myself, with what my life would become so soon.

She knew. She must have known it would happen to me, just like Mags and Haymitch and everyone else must have known, but nobody said a word. Scarlett I could almost understand, having her own pain so fresh and immediate, but Mags? What was her excuse?

I watched the Games, though. I watched nothing happen but the tributes walking around, interacting, finding food and shelter and looking for water, which was still alluding them all. I assumed it was because it wasn't there, but I supposed that I couldn't know for sure until they'd shown every inch of the arena, which they weren't likely to do.

"It can't go on like this forever," Beetee pointed out calmly as we came back from lunch with sponsors to find that all that had happened was Draven and Charlotte kicking Daisy out of their group because they were running low on food supplies. "Someone's got to die sooner or later."

He was right, and we knew that it would be sooner if the Gamemakers had anything to say about it. I hoped that it would all be over with in just a matter of hours so that I could go back to District Four and have time to digest what was happening to me, time to think and talk it over with my family, who were sure to have some sort of advice. My parents were very smart people.

But the chances that it would all be over, just like that, were low and I knew it.

"Oh, I think Daisy won't make it a full day," Jonas said with a shrug. "They didn't even have the courtesy to give her a small amount of provisions, and she's got no sponsors. I heard Piper frantically trying to get her some over lunch because I think she sensed this was going to happen."

Piper Northrop of District Nine had won the 13th Hunger Games, and had been a mentor for more than thirty years until Chloe Tillman won. Chloe had handed mentoring back over to Piper, though, a couple of years before my own Games, so that she could spend more time with her children.

Of course, she was just sitting around praying her children wouldn't be reaped, but I wouldn't know the difference, personally. She had a son if I remembered correctly, definitely reaping age. I couldn't recall what she'd named him, but her surname wasn't Tillman anymore. Zimmerman, I thought. It was typically a name that was from District Seven, which was what made me remember it. Probably the descendent of someone displaced during the Dark Days. Maybe he was even distantly related to Ellie, who'd died in my own Games.

Those of us with surviving tributes were interviewed that evening, Claudius Templesmith and Caesar Flickerman both chattering and excitable, probably because there hadn't been a death in so long, which usually meant something was going to happen soon.

"So, Finnick," Caesar asked me as we watched some replays of Luke's kills, "Luke was certainly not a favorite coming into this, but he's risen toward the top quite rapidly, especially with the specific kills he's made. Did you know he had it in him?"

"Honestly, no," I said, keeping on my greasy smile that I was glad I'd gotten so practiced, else I wouldn't have been able to summon it that day. "Luke never seemed especially dangerous or charming or promising, not like Ligeia did, but then, I think in my own Games no one expected anything of me, especially next to Stella!"

"These Games have had some interesting twists," Caesar agreed. "For example, Draven. He's avoided a lot of the killing himself, getting Charlotte or others to do it for him. Do you see that as his strength, or his weakness?"

"I think it depends on whether he kills Charlotte," I whispered, "or she kills him."

"And that's just the truth of it, isn't it?" Caesar said, and I got the sense he'd finished with me, and when someone said 'cut' from off the soundstage I knew it was the truth and I was grateful for the opportunity to leave the soundstage.

Haymitch was standing there as I came out, watching Scarlett go in, and I was about to leave, but he caught my arm, just standing there, watching as the door closed behind her before turning to me.

"I know," was all he said at first, just watching my face for a reaction, but I was too emotionally exhausted to give him one. "I talked to Snow. You're not working tonight. I got it off for you. You need the time to work things out, think things over, come to terms."

"Did you ever-?"

"No," he said softly, shaking his head. "But I've seen it enough in others. You and Scarlett... you're not the first. You won't be the last. If that Draven wins, he'll be the next."

I nodded.

"Thank you," I said, not entirely certain if I wanted to thank him or not, but I knew he'd done something that was probably good for me, and probably at great personal risk.

He just grunted and walked away.

After a moment of watching him go and Scarlett not coming out of the soundstage, I made my way back to my room, silently, contemplatively, wondering why Haymitch would make such a gesture for me. Had he done it for Scarlett, or had something else marked the beginning of her time as a prostitute of the Capitol?

Of course, once I thought of it, it wasn't exactly a secret. I hadn't know exactly what to look for, but the way the male sponsors flocked to her, fawned over her...

I had just thought it was a part of her persona, I mused, stripping down and getting into the shower, letting the cool water run over my body as I lathered my hair. Perhaps, in a way, it was. Our personas had caused this, caused the initial interest that kept us alive, and then made us profitable. And part of staying alive after that meant bowing to our own profitability, and not ruining Snow's profit margins. We, the tributes and victors, were his little cash cows, and he would milk us dry and then take some more.

"I don't want to do this," I said to myself, shaking my head violently against the stream of water. "I don't want to. I don't want to be a pawn."

But my parents... I didn't want anything to happen to them. I didn't want to be like Scarlett, alone and desperate and still forced to do whatever it was they wanted of her.

I had an idea of what they wanted of her, of what was wanted of me. But not much of one. I'd never had a girlfriend, and I'd never even been kissing any of the pretty girls who'd become suddenly interested in me once I'd become a victor.

They didn't really want to kiss me, just to kiss a victor.

I didn't want to be that victor, but apparently I would have to be. They wouldn't even be girls I knew or liked or thought were pretty. They probably wouldn't even be girls, but the women who I had to schmooze with to get any sort of support for Luke, the same women who'd probably paid for my trident in the hopes that they'd get a chance to have sex with me, when I was old enough.

I had been fourteen when I'd won the Hunger Games! I had been a child! That was just sick!

But in a way, I was still a child, I thought. Scarlett had been protecting that, as had Mags and all the others, by not telling me about Scarlett, by not warning me. They were allowing me to keep that childish innocence just a little bit longer, knowing like I should have seen the situation I would be in, what was coming the moment I became old enough to be acceptably sold off for the night.

I wasn't angry at them, not really.

They were protecting me, and I was sure that someday I would be grateful for it. Someday... but not in that moment. Not standing under the jets of water, feeling the cool liquid on my skin, knowing that in a day's time I would be expected to warm the bed of some rich floozy who'd paid an awful lot of money for the pleasure. I could barely stand knowing it, could barely stand myself, and I just had the urge to break everything I could find.

But what good would that do? If I could break enough things that the cost weighed out the money that would be paid to bed me, what about all the other nights?

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, drying myself off as I tried to calm down my rage, knowing that all would be left once that was gone would be despair. What else could there be? And did I really want to be left with nothing by my despair to protect me?

Did I really need to be protected? Was I really so weak? After all, I'd won the Hunger Games, hadn't I? I was strong enough to survive. Surely I was strong enough to handle what was going to come to me.

But I didn't feel strong as I pulled on some shorts, looking around the room with a frown on my face.

There had been nights, presumably her nights off, when Scarlett had snuck into my room, plagued by nightmares. At least, I had thought that was what had bothered her as I'd wrapped my arms around her and told her that no one was going to hurt her. I had fed her the lies she had so badly wanted to believe, the same lies that I so badly wished I could make myself believe, that someone might feed me.

But there was no one left naive enough to feed me lies as I had done with Scarlett. She wouldn't do it. Mags wouldn't do it. No one would hold me and tell me things were okay.

Because they weren't okay, and I wasn't a child anymore and it was time I dealt with things, I could almost hear an ambiguously stern voice saying in my head, scolding me for even wanting to be lied to.

With a heavy sigh, I climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin and scrunched my eyes shut, desperately hoping against hope that I would have peaceful, dreamless sleep for once, not filled with the faces of those I'd killed or watched die or failed, not filled with the smell of blood and roses that followed President Snow around, even lingering in the District Seven living area after he had left Scarlett and I alone.

But eventually I fell asleep, and while it wasn't dreamless, it was thankfully not too horribly unpleasant, simply dreaming of myself floating in the ocean, bobbing up and down as the waves ebbed and flowed.

I woke up partway through the night, though, with a red-haired girl in bed beside me. At first, I thought she might be there for comfort from nightmares again, but I realized she was caressing my face.

"Scarlett?" I muttered sleepily. There were tears in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"The president gave me the night off," she whispered.

I was confused, not sure if this was a byproduct of the dizziness of being still half in sleep, or the dizziness caused by the patterns her fingertips were tracing on my skin.

"What?" I managed to murmur.

"I've been granted the night off from my Capitol duties in order to get you ready for yours," she whispered into my ear, and I couldn't help but shudder at the sensation.

"Why?" I asked as I realized what she meant.

"Because your first time should be with someone who cares about you, Finnick," she whispered, "and not with some rich old person who finds your innocence cute and provincial."

I didn't have to see her face properly to know she was crying. I could hear it in the ever-so-slight quiver of her voice. Whatever had gone on during her first time was clearly a painful memory.

But before I could collect my thoughts and really know what I ought to say or do, Scarlett had pulled her nightclothes up over her head and thrown them on the floor. And she had nothing on underneath.

All mental facility I had managed to pull together after have been woken utterly vanished in that moment as I stared at her and she took my hand and ran it along her body, and my fingertips felt as though they burnt with a delightful sort of fire at the feel of her silky skin.

"Scarlett-"

But she silenced me by crashing her lips on mine and, I'll admit, I'm male and she was delicious.

I could hardly determine what was going on, but I had some sense that I was hungrily returning her kiss, vaguely aware that my hands had begun roaming her skin of their own accord, and that her fingers were running through my hair.

Suddenly, her lips parted from mine and I let out a moan of disappointment, only to gasp in pleasure as her plump lips explored my neck, clearly well-practiced at the path she followed down my chest. She pulled off my shorts, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but she whispered, "Relax," and I took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself.

I was entirely unprepared for the sensation of her warm, wet mouth on my already-hard penis, and I twitched in surprise and pleasure.

"Ah, Scarlett," I whimpered, trying very hard not to cry out too loudly as her head began to bob up and down the shaft, and I hissed, my mind getting fuzzier by the second from the thrill of it all, my hands getting tangled up in her hair almost of their own accord.

She spent hours teaching me how to pleasure her that night, and how to give myself pleasure while doing so. I knew it would never be the same, doing any of it with some other woman, as I would have to do, but I consoled myself with the fact that I could always imagine that the Capitol woman was Scarlett, and then it would all be easy.

She also took my virginity, although I was a bit scared when it came to that. She reassured me sweetly, although not in the sickening way of her Capitol persona, but the sort of way she used to talk with her brothers or Alyson, before they'd been killed.

"It won't hurt you," she said softly, her fingertips tracing my face as she climbed on top of me, straddling me.

"Did it hurt you?" I asked, half curious, half trying to think of things to say because I thought it might ease the fear I was feeling about having something so important taken from me with such little time to think it over, with such little self-determination.

"Yes."

"Does it still hurt?"

I didn't like the idea of causing her pain, even if it would do me some measure of good in the long run. I wasn't sure what I would do if she said it did, whether I would stop everything and demand that I not hurt her, or if I would let her just get it over with anyway, for my sake, like she wanted.

"Not physically," she said in a sad voice, her fingers tracing my lips thoughtfully, frowning as though just remembering something unpleasant. "Don't worry. You won't hurt me."

About a half hour later when we finally collapsed together, our legs intertwined, her body on top of mine, embracing each other, her head resting on my chest, it was nearing dawn and we were both completely spent. It felt good, the sweat on our bodies so intermingled and a small mark on her shoulder from where I'd bit her in my moment of greatest passion to keep from waking Mags. I had a feeling there were lines on my back from where Scarlett's fingernails had been.

"Wow," I sighed. "Is it always that incredible?"

"No," she said honestly, her fingers lacing in mine, feeling just perfect. "It's usually not."

"Mmm," I murmur, turning her over so that I was on top of her and kissing her sweet lips again. I felt a bit drunk on the taste of her lips, deciding that her mouth was my favorite flavor. "I just got lucky then, did I?"

"Tremendously," she sighed as I kissed her graceful neck, enjoying the feel of her sweat-soaked skin on my lips. "Oh, Finnick, I swear you're a natural."

"I'm just a quick study," I teased, "with the best teacher."

"Finnick," she whispered, and I rested my forehead on hers, running my fingers through her perfect, silky hair, enjoying how the sweat and actions of the night had tangled it. "You know this doesn't change anything between us. The rumors, they're not going to suddenly be true now. We're still just really good friends, right?"

"Of course," I agreed, pressing my lips gently to hers to seal the agreement, but I wondered in the back of my mind if there was any way I would be able to look at her again and not see her riding me, her red hair falling around her shoulders as her head was thrown back in ecstasy, my name on her delicious lips in a sigh of pleasure.

Somehow, I didn't think so.

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to **_**Missing Triforce**_**, my lovely friend and co-author who is a dedicated reader and reviewer of this series. THANK YOU DEAR for your interest in this story and others.**

** -J**


	16. Finding Purpose: Luke

**A/N: Luke's POV**

It was the eleventh day when things started to feel like the Hunger Games again.

After the lack of death or events since watching Hanna getting eaten by lizards, it was all I could do not to allow myself to get lulled into a false sense of security. I would not be caught off guard. I would not give Draven or Charlotte or anybody else that sort of competitive advantage. I'd given Catriona far too much of an advantage, catching me asleep, but that I couldn't help so much. It could still be over a week to the end, and I wasn't going to try to stay awake for it all.

That would have been a much surer death sentence, and I was looking for no such thing.

I'd yet to find water, but Finnick had ensured that I hadn't needed to, and I had plenty of food with my seemingly foolproof method of hunting lizards. Once I'd gotten into the swing of things, it really wasn't so bad.

I hadn't seen a tribute in days, which I didn't mind so much, except that it was eerie. There weren't too many of us left, yes, and there was still an alliance out there, somewhere, as far as I knew, but it was still disconcerting.

What was more disconcerting, though, was what I found when I did find signs of what one might call life.

I was still looking for water, although without much in the way of hope for finding it, when I stumbled across what I thought was a corpse in the middle of the deserts.

Daisy wasn't dead yet, I realized as she looked up at me with hollow but living eyes, but she was on death's door.

"When was the last time you ate?" I asked her, sitting down beside the virtual skeleton, noting skin rashes, sunburn, and even places where lizards had taken a chunk of skin in passing, looking for better meat to feast on.

"I don't remember," she muttered. Her skin was dry and cracking, I noticed, especially her lip.

There was no other diagnosis: she was starving to death, and even if I could have saved her (which I couldn't have), it was better for me and her both to just let her die.

"Luke," she rasped, swallowing with some difficulty. "Luke, Charlotte made him leave me. She... she wanted to kill me, but he wouldn't let her."

I assumed that 'he' was Draven.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I don't know," she managed to choke out. "But they didn't leave me anything. I can't even move, Luke, it hurts."

I didn't know what to do. Part of me said to put her out of her misery, but if Draven couldn't or would do that, then what would that make me? I decided only to do so if she asked, but I couldn't just leave her. What if she decided later she wanted someone to do her in but no one was there to help? So I sat down on the sand beside her, knife at the ready both in case of attack and in case she asked me to relieve her of the pain.

"Would you rather he'd killed you?" I asked softly.

"No," she rasped.

I nodded, knowing that I couldn't kill her after that, and I took her sun-burned hand, holding it as tenderly as I could.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" she asked. "It feels so close."

With slight hesitation, I nodded and said, "You're beyond my skill to heal, Daisy, even if I had everything I needed."

She probably would have nodded if she'd had the strength. Instead, she just looked up at me with her hollow eyes and said, "Okay."

Well, that was that, I supposed, and all that was left was to wait. I didn't know too much about death by natural causes. She was weak. Perhaps her heart would stop first, or she wouldn't have the strength to breathe. I didn't really know how it worked, but I had a feeling it would be her heart that would stop. The least I could do was keep the lizards from hurting her body any more than they had.

"Whatever you do," she rasped as her eyes fluttered closed again, "don't let Charlotte beat you."

"I certainly wasn't planning on it," I whispered, stroking her matted hair. "Don't worry, I'll do whatever I can."

She didn't say anything after that, but a barely perceptible smile crossed her lips and I knew she felt at least a bit contented. I couldn't help but feel pleased that she wouldn't die a horrible, violent death like the rest. I hoped we were on screen, because I hoped her family would get to see that she wasn't dying alone.

It took a while for the cannon to sound, but when it did, I took a deep breath, wiped the sand off my face with my sleeve, and petted her hair once more. Then I lifted her fingers to my lips, horrified at how light her arm was, even with the weight of death on her body, and I kissed her knuckles.

"I'm sorry I came too late," I sighed, hoping the cameras couldn't hear me, but fairly sure they could.

I stood, grabbing the knife Draven had left beside her, and heading away so the hovercraft could pick up the body.

It didn't get any easier, I realized, even toward the end. I hadn't killed her, but I hadn't even tried to save her. What did that make me?

Another pawn?

Weak?

Strong?

I felt terrible, like a terrible human being, but another tribute just meant another person to kill or be killed by later, and that wasn't something I relished.

Besides, I couldn't afford to use precious resources on someone I knew I couldn't keep alive... could I?

I had sponsors, yes, but did I have enough sponsors to feed and water the both of us? Even if I did, would they do it?

Daisy's face was the only one in the sky on the eleventh night. It wasn't too terribly surprising.

There were no faces on the twelfth night.

I had done nothing that day, as I always was. I hunted lizards. I looked for water that I was becoming more and more sure didn't exist. I received another sponsor gift from Finnick: water and fruit. There was even a roll tucked in there, probably rewarding me for my handling of Daisy. Maybe it had gotten me a few more sponsors or something. Maybe Finnick had just thought it was the right thing to do.

That seemed like something Finnick would do, or even Mags.

The roll was appreciated, whatever the reasoning, and it was especially nice that I had the water and fruit to go with it, since my mouth was so dry all the time. It hadn't even been two weeks, and I could still have more than a week to go. The smaller the number of tributes, the longer it took between kills. We started to spread out across the arena, and we wouldn't be drawn together unless there were several days without action or that it got down to the final two.

I wasn't sure in that moment whether I wanted to make it to the final two or not. The chances that I would be able to face Draven or Charlotte by the final day, whenever it finally came along, didn't seem too bright that day. The other thing I had to keep reminding myself, though, was that they were bound to be more depleted by the time that day came, as well. After all, if they were already depositing their allies to get rid of mouths to feed, they obviously weren't bringing in enough food to feed them adequately.

I wondered vaguely if Maggie was still with them, or if Charlotte had wanted to kill her, too, and Draven left her somewhere else to die of starvation. Why hadn't Draven just killed Daisy? I asked myself the question over and over without any real answer to come up with. He hadn't killed Catriona, either. He could have killed Daisy easily, and Catriona with a struggle. I knew he was capable of it, so why hadn't he agreed with Charlotte and narrowed the field? He would have gone home sooner, possibly.

Or maybe it wouldn't make any difference in the end, I thought, curling up for the night under the arena sky, vaguely wondering where in Panem we actually were, even though it didn't really matter. If I died, it didn't matter where I'd died. If I lived, I'd never want to think of my own arena ever again. I'd be too busy focusing on the arenas of my tributes I would have to mentor, anyway. No time for thinking of my arena.

My arena. It would only be mine if I won, I reminded myself, trying to use my pack as a pillow of sorts. If I won.

On the morning of the thirteenth day, I woke to dark skies. At first I thought it was still night, but I realized eventually that it was just a trick of the arena, sort of like clouds with no hope of rain. I knew better than to hope for some sort of help from the Gamemakers. If there would be rain, it would be acid or some form of poison, not any sort of nourishment. Maybe they intended to drown us all.

But somehow I doubted that.

So without knowing what they had in store, I woke up, stretched, and gathered my things to continue my cynical, hopeless search for clean drinking water.

I hoped that Finnick and my sponsors were admiring my tenacity, because I was starting to think it was something closer to naive optimism, or possibly the beginnings of insanity. I didn't particularly want to end up like Catriona, so I was trying to push the possibility of insanity away.

I was finally contented by not seeing other tributes, although I remained on alert. Sure, it was hard to sneak up on someone in the desert, but there were no shifting leaves anywhere to give away an approaching tribute. But the land was relatively flat with a few dunes and boulders keeping us from seeing the whole of the arena, and possibly distance itself, which played such tricks on the eye and depth perception.

Nobody would sneak up on me, I reassured myself, at least not without getting a knife to the throat.

Except for Draven, I recalled, thinking of the lasso he showed me during the training. He could sneak close enough to rope me with a lasso and have me at his mercy before I had a chance to toss a knife in his direction.

Lunchtime was just as dark as breakfast, and Finnick sent me my rations for the day as usual, with fruit and water, and I hunted down some lizard as I searched for water.

I was beginning to refer to walking around as "searching for water" in my mind, because it all lead to the same end. There was no water. Somewhere in me I knew it, but I had to keep walking just to do something, so I might as well tell myself that was what I was doing. It was as good as anything else, and it felt good to think I had a purpose.

When I finally made a spot to sleep that night, looking up to find that, as I already knew, nobody died that day, I knew the next day would bring something terrible. The Gamemakers didn't let the lack of carnage go on long before adding in their own infusion of action. I just didn't want to think about what that might be in the hell our arena was. I curled up into a ball with one of my knives in hand. I had to be ready to no matter what it was.

Of course the fourteenth day wasn't as dramatic as some might have hoped, but there was a death.

I woke up in the morning, same as I had been for two weeks, a knife in hand and the hot sun of the arena overhead, pushing me onwards about my day.

"Well," I muttered to myself, "at least it's not gotten any worse."

How it could have worsened, I wasn't sure. There were ways, of course. The clouds that had cooled the arena the day before were gone, without having dropped any rain, and it seemed as though the desert was drier than ever.

Of course that probably wasn't true. It was probably impossible for that arena to get any drier than it had been all along, but my body was gradually depleting itself of its usual amount of water and Finnick's gifts were unable to properly keep me going for too long. Eventually, I'd still get too weak to really keep going. I wasn't sure how long it would be, but as long as the water kept coming I would probably not die of thirst before the end of the Games. If I died, it would be from someone's weapon or the teeth of the lizards.

More likely someone's weapon, and most likely Draven's, whatever weapon he was using.

In spite of the drier feeling, I went off in my usual hopeless search for water and hopeful search for lizards to eat. I walked through the arena, one tired foot in front of the other, wishing that the lizards would just eat everyone else so it would be over and I could just go home. I was half tempted to just let the lizards eat me. It might be better than wandering through the endless sand, searching for water I knew didn't exist.

Wandering was uneventful, mostly. I found some lizards, and managed to use my practiced hunting technique to kill two of the smaller ones, which I cooked just enough to know they were safe to eat before stomping out the fire and eating them on the move.

Around midday, my daily gift from Finnick arrived with water and fruit, and a couple of strips of dried beef.

"Thank you, Finnick," I sighed, drinking a few mouthfuls of the water, saving the rest for later in the day. I never liked to drink it all at once, mostly for comfort's sake.

I continued on my way, and the sun was just going to the other side of the sky when I came across a rather large grouping of lizards.

Poised to toss my knife, with one hand in my pocket, feeling for the stones I carried for just such an occasion, I jumped slightly at the sound of the cannon firing and I watched the lizards scatter. I was just about to curse whoever had died when I saw the body of Anselm laying in the sand where the lizards had been.

The body looked similar to Daisy's, but not quite as thin.

Thirst, I realized. He'd died of thirst.

The thought was unnerving, but I reminded myself that if things continued as they'd been going, there was no way I'd die of thirst.

Still, I looked at his body for a moment, trying to memorize what a person looked like when they died of thirst. I didn't want to forget, just in case that ended up being me someday soon.

I decided that it looked more painful to die of hunger.

Hunger Games.

I wondered, as I walked away so that the hovercraft could pick him up, if more people had died of hunger or thirst in the Hunger Games. They probably kept record of the statistics of such matters, but I probably didn't want to know the answer, anyway. It was all fairly depressing.

But what part of my situation wasn't depressing? All right, so there were obviously people enjoying it in the Capitol or the whole spectacle wouldn't happen year after year, but I was beginning to understand what Finnick had said about how I shouldn't feel honored to be representing my District. Where was the honor in what I was being forced to do, win or lose?

The wandering the rest of the day felt even more hopeless and aimless than usual, and I was glad when the arena sun started to sink on the horizon. I quickly found a suitable place to make my camp for the night and situated myself, doing little more than waiting for the face of Anselm to greet me on the sky of the arena, the last time I would see it if I lost, the last time I would see it as it was before he died if I won.

I wasn't sure which was more comforting a thought.

Either way, I watched his face as it lit up the arena sky and thought over the few people who still stood between me and home. Draven, Charlotte, Maggie... Was that really all that was left?

No, Alexander, from Nine. Alexander was still alive.

I wondered who would die next, if maybe it would be me.

But then I remembered my promise to Daisy as she was dying. Charlotte couldn't win. No matter what I did, I had to make sure Charlotte didn't win.

I had a purpose again, I thought with a smile. There was still no water, no matter how much I tried looking for it, but there was Charlotte and there was my promise. When morning came, I decided, I would go on a hunt for Charlotte instead of water, and maybe, just maybe I would find a way to win, or at least I would manage to kill her.

Because Daisy was right. Charlotte didn't deserve to win if she treated her allies that way, the way my allies had treated me.

And once I had killed Charlotte or found out she was dead, I would kill Draven, I decided as I drifted off to sleep.


	17. Maggie: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

I had already gotten to the point, by the fifteenth day, of hating myself every morning just a bit more as I woke up in my bed.

At least I was able to wake up in my own Capitol bed, I tried to tell myself. At least I didn't have to actually spend the night with the women. Not the full night, anyway.

Lucretia Bluehollow had been my first 'client', as well as the most recent. She wasn't so terribly old, not as old as some of the men Scarlett had pointed out as her clients, like Kenelm Laguov, who was her most regular client.

Lucretia was probably in her early forties, although sometimes it was difficult to tell with these Capitol people and all their vanity procedures, and I certainly knew better than to actually ask her how old she was. She praised my skill as a lover over and over, and I wondered if her husband heard the same things she whispered in my ear both nights or if I was the escape from her husband.

I was guessing the latter.

Really, it was thanks to Scarlett that I'd not been laughed out of the bed on the first night, and I was grateful for it almost as much as I sat around recalling it, her hair tickling my skin, her lips on my lips...

But nothing was supposed to change, Scarlett had said, and so I did my very best not to let things be awkward. I hadn't even properly expressed my thanks that she'd prepared me, because I didn't think the women I had been with would have been forgiving as the men she'd started out with, condescending or no. Women could be nasty like that, and my very persona as far as the Capitol was concerned was doused with charm and oozing sex.

So as far as anyone was concerned, that's who I was, and if I hadn't been able to deliver on that it probably would have been really bad for somebody, possibly me or my family.

As Scarlett had said, I was starting to receive gifts from my clients, trinkets and money and whatnot. Scarlett and I had agreed that there had to be some better way for them to pay us, but we'd not come up with something that made us feel less dirty and more like we were fighting back, so we gathered our trinkets and kept thinking.

There was none of the passion and magic I'd felt with Scarlett with any of the other women. I tried to tell myself that it was just the fact that it was my first time, nothing more than the rush of her being the first woman I'd experienced. I'd heard boys talking about the 'first' like it was some incredibly deep experience.

In a way, maybe it was.

I couldn't really decide, though, until I knew whether or not my lingering longing to taste Scarlett's lips again was because she was my first or because she was Scarlett.

Scarlett didn't come back to my room after that night, so on the morning of the fifteenth I had gone to her room, to wake her up, to try my luck at getting another kiss, even though I knew she'd said that there wasn't anything changed between us. Maybe she didn't feel any sort of change, but I did, every time I looked at her.

Haymitch had noticed, of course. Haymitch noticed everything, and I hadn't missed the way they whispered together the night of the fourteenth, looking over at me, and I just knew they were talking about me.

After that, Scarlett seemed more distant, like she'd been when I didn't know about her being a prostitute for the Capitol and she was trying to keep it from me. I couldn't figure out what she was keeping from me this time, and it made everything else going on just a bit harder to bear.

On the morning of the fifteenth, I snuck into her room as softly as possible, looking down on her peacefully sleeping form.

She looked like the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen, laying there, her sheets bunched around her waist so I could see her cute feet poking out the bottom and her perfect breasts bared at the top. I smiled slightly to myself, wondering if I could get away with running my tongue along the swell of those breasts without suffering her wrath when she woke up. She shifted in her sleep and I decided against it.

Instead, I sat on the end of the bed, tickling the bottom of her feet gently. Her face, which had been so peaceful, scrunched up in an annoyed expression and she turned over, kicking at my hand.

"Go away, Alyson," she groaned.

I frowned slightly, a bit disconcerted to be mistake for her dead niece, but I gathered myself quickly.

She was sleeping. Scarlett didn't really know what was going on or even what she was saying.

"Scarlett, darling," I said softly, shaking her leg a bit. "It's time to wake up."

She groaned thrashing her arms and legs in protest to my words.

With a sigh and no other way to wake her up gently, I took her foot, lifted it slightly, and began placing kisses up the back of her calf, starting at her heel and moving up slowly as she shifted, starting to wake.

"Don't do that, Finnick," she groaned, blinking up at me. "You're likely to get a broken nose. I kick in my sleep."

"I noticed," I teased. "C'mon, Scarlett, we've got to go watch the Games."

"I'll be along," she said, pulling the sheets up to block her perfect breasts from my view, and I assuaged my hurt by saying it was because she was cold, and it _was_ chilly in that room.

But when I nodded and reached the door, she said, "Nothing's changing Finnick. Please don't forget that."

I nodded with a bitter fake smile, but I went up to watch the Games wishing she'd left me wishing.

On the fifteenth day, we sat and watched a variety of things happen.

The first was that Draven, Charlotte, and Maggie went their separate ways. They were all short on food and water, to the point that they had none left. Draven had sponsors, but the girls were truly going to be on their own once they walked away from him, or rather, Charlotte and Draven walked away from Maggie, who was too weak to move.

The most disturbing bit about their alliance was that Charlotte and Draven, who held all the power, had made a deal that Charlotte would kill them if Draven didn't give them the food the pair of them needed to protect themselves and the others.

It made logical sense until you thought about the fact that Charlotte was still slowly killing her allies, by starving them to death instead of bludgeoning them with her mace.

So the three of them split from each other, Maggie lying in the sand, gasping for air, and desperately clinging to life.

Much like Daisy and Anselm had been, at the end.

"This is just depressing," Haymitch muttered.

Several of the other victors nodded, myself included.

We all knew that Maggie was going to die, but it was just a matter of when and how. I suspected it would be hunger, if something didn't eat her first.

The big flaw had been in Draven's inability to lasso any of the lizards. Unlike humans, they were too small and quick to be caught by even Draven's skill with the loop of rope. So his sponsors had had to provide not only water, but also food.

Charlotte had been able to help at first, but even with Scarlett flirting her best, people became disenchanted with her brutality very quickly and the sponsors dried up the coffers quickly.

Apparently, the image of a young woman bludgeoning other people to death with a mace wasn't a particularly attractive thing for the greasy men Scarlett had to work with in hopes to keep Charlotte alive.

Draven's almost-mercy, on the other hand, had seemed to have gained him even more sponsors, especially on the fifteenth day, when he finally was on his own and the gifts wouldn't have to be shared amongst his allies. Because nobody wanted Charlotte to win, and Maggie had no prayer.

It was sometime after lunch when I sat between Beetee and Jonas to watch the rest of the day, having secured enough sponsor support for the day to send Luke his daily allotment of water and fruit.

It was some five minutes after I sat down when a lizard came over to the immobile but living body of Maggie, laying in the sand. I'm not sure if lizards sniff, but the mutt certainly considered her for a moment before scrambling over to her legs.

"No," I thought I heard her say, and she was as aware as the people at home were as to what was about to happen.

"Oh, not again," Callie groaned from the other side of Jonas, covering her face with her hands, but peeking very obviously through the space between her fingers.

She, like the rest of us, didn't want to miss the action, no matter how disgusting we knew it was going to be.

The lizard opened its jaws and took a large bite out of Maggie's leg, removing a large chunk of the remaining flesh that was already wasting off her. She screamed in pain and there was a moderate trickle of blood coming from the wound as the lizard chewed and swallowed.

It took a few more bites over the course of the next twenty minutes, although we didn't spend all twenty minutes watching the lizard bite and chew. It was intermittent with watching Draven walking around, muttering to himself about how much he hated Charlotte.

None of us could really blame him for that. She'd made his life in the arena particularly hard with her bad attitude and shows of strength that were more childish than intimidating at times.

But we still had to watch the lizard eating several bites of Maggie's leg. She was crying out in pain, but the other tributes either couldn't hear her or were choosing to ignore it. I probably would have ignored it if I'd been one of the tributes. Or tried to, anyway. Screams like that would have been difficult to ignore.

We'd gotten to the point where we had to talk to Caesar and Claudius about all of the major events, so we sat there talking about how we were going to have to talk about that lizard taking a chunk or two out of her leg.

"I would rather not have to talk about that," Scarlett sighed. "Trust me, that has to be agony. Do you think she's going to die of blood loss or infection or...?"

"For someone who doesn't want to talk about it," Haymitch drawled from the other side of her, "you're still yammering on about it."

"I would say she's going to die of hunger," Jonas said quietly. "If you guys don't want to talk about it, it's okay. Callie and I have to. Just tell them that they should ask us."

I felt a rush of sympathy for Jonas and Callie, who finally had a year where their tributes were doing well and then something like this had to happen.

It wasn't comfortable, watching someone die of hunger. Thirst, either, for that matter. Beetee's boy had died of thirst. My own Games were so short that hunger didn't even play into the picture, and water was in large supply, although not without its own risks. I'd heard Chaff talking about people starving in District Eleven of all places, but in District Four the very idea that someone would die of hunger or thirst was just absurd. We might not have been as extravagantly over-fed as the Capitol, but we were certainly not starving.

On the morning of the sixteenth day, I thought about waking up Scarlett again, maybe getting another look at her looking like a sleeping angel, but I didn't think she'd let it happen again so soon after I'd surprised her. So instead, I showered, ate a quick breakfast, and went up to the twelfth floor to watch the Games.

Sure enough, Scarlett and Haymitch were sitting together, her drinking orange juice and him drinking some sort of alcohol, not even paying attention to the food. Haymitch must have gotten her up on her request, because Blight was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, Finnick," she sighed. "Sleep okay?"

I hadn't really slept much, but I nodded. She would have done the same if I'd asked, even though I knew she'd probably been kept up at least as long as I was by clients.

The opportunity to observe Scarlett and Haymitch without a bunch of people around wasn't lost on me, although between the time I came in and the time Callie and Jonas wandered in about half an hour later, nothing at all strange happened, so I still didn't know what the inside joke was all about.

"You've not turned on the Games yet?" Callie said anxiously, and I realized she was probably nervous about Maggie. She would have been told if Maggie had died, but she something could have happened on the elevator ride. "I spent all night trying to get her sponsors," Callie admitted to me wearily. "Nobody wanted to. They all figured she was as good as dead and not worth their money when there's winners like Draven and Luke and Charlotte still running around. Jonas is even having a hard time getting supporters for Alexander, but at least he's not on death's door."

"Maybe she won't die today," I said supportively, sitting down beside her as Jonas turned the Games on.

"No, she'll die today," Callie sighed, shaking her head. "If not from something else, the hunger will surely get her today. I've seen enough Games to know when it's coming."

"The question is when," Jonas muttered, nodding in agreement.

I frowned at the screen, wondering if I would know when Luke was going to die. Or maybe he wouldn't die. Maybe he would win it all.

But even I hadn't thought he would make it as far as he had.

The other mentors trickled in, grabbed some food if they hadn't done so before heading up to meet us, and then gathered on the couch. By the time we'd all settled, they'd just finished the playing the interviews we'd recorded the evening before about how the tributes were doing.

"Have they said anything about Maggie yet?" Beetee asked.

Several of us shook our heads in response as the screen showed Draven getting up for the day, making himself breakfast and drinking some of the water his sponsors had bought for him. Scarlett was the only person who seemed interested at all in Draven's breakfast. The rest of us wanted to see how Maggie was doing.

It was early afternoon before we saw Maggie again. Her leg had bled a bit, obviously, and her lips were so cracked that they, too, were bleeding.

"Hunger," Haymitch said with a nod. "Any minute now."

The tension in the room was so thick it was almost choking as we watched for two minutes of Maggie rasping uncomfortably on the screen, the camera angles changing every few moments because Maggie herself wasn't moving at all.

"Are sure she isn't already-?"

But Scarlett's question was punctuated mid-sentence by the blow of a cannon.

We watched in silence as the hovercraft picked up the finally-dead Maggie, showing her hauntingly gaunt face one more time as she was pulled out of the arena, leaving only four tributes left in the Games.

Nearly there.

The three of us with tributes still in the race then stood and made our way to the elevator.

"Do you think she suffered terribly?" Scarlett asked Jonas as we stood in the elevator, waiting to land on the main floor to work toward getting gifts for our tributes.

"She suffered," Jonas said with a shrug. "How terribly, though, I can't say."

When we stepped out of the elevator and made our way toward the large lobby the sponsors were waiting in, I turned to Scarlett.

"Do you think Alexander's got a prayer?" I asked.

Really, I was asking about Luke, but I didn't want to say his name for fear of him losing if I did for whatever silly superstitious reason. Scarlett knew what I was really asking, though, and she shrugged.

"Charlotte doesn't," she muttered, "if I can't get someone to finally send her water. Even my most loyal customers don't want to put too much toward her, and everything's getting really pricey this late in the Games."

I hadn't realized that Charlotte wasn't getting water. I'd been so wrapped up in supplying Luke, trying to decide if the 'non-contenders' were about to die, and how to survive the night without making a dangerous mistake. I hadn't noticed the struggles Scarlett was having, and I realized that the money they weren't giving to Charlotte was probably going to nights spent with her, which probably compounded Scarlett's guilt, but what was she supposed to do? She couldn't just tell them to spend their money on Charlotte instead.

It was a sick sort of cycle we were caught in, and the whole rest of the day I kept seeing Maggie's gaunt face: on the face of a sponsor; in the reflective surface of a plugged, filled sink; on the inside of my eyelids as I closed my eyes.

It wasn't even my fault she was dead. She wasn't my responsibility, and yet, I knew her face was going to haunt my nightmares from that night on, just like the ones I'd killed, the ones I'd let down... Lila, Stella, Alana, Aiden, people I'd forgotten the names of but their faces were unforgettable...

And now Maggie.


	18. Finale: Scarlett

**A/N: Scarlett's POV**

The very day after Maggie died was a very interesting day.

The camera was on Draven Dupre from almost the first moment of coverage. Finnick handed me a glass of orange juice when I came rolling in after a very late night out with one of my demanding clients and gave me a tight sort of smile.

"Haymitch says it's nearly done," Finnick said softly when I took the juice and sat down beside him. "Says he can smell it."

It all smelled the same as usual to me, but I didn't question it. Haymitch was never wrong.

Draven was stalking something, a rope ready. I couldn't figure out what he was tracking, or if it was even possible to tract something in such a desert, but he seemed to be more than a little bit clever.

Despite my best efforts, Draven Dupre had managed to impress me over the course of the Games. It was too bad, really. Maybe in a different world I could have given in to my curiosity and maybe we could have been happy together, if he was really sincere with his interest in me. But in the world I lived in, the world I had to live in, there was no place for caring about anyone.

"What is he looking for?" I asked Haymitch, who had just sat down on the other side of me, drink in hand. "Is he hunting lizards or something?"

Haymitch shook his head slightly, taking a long drink. Finally, he said, "Naw, he's looking for the other tributes. He's mad that Maggie's dead, I think. I think he's guilty that he didn't put her out of her misery or something like that. He's acting like he feels guilty. Anyway, you can see it in his eyes. He's ready for it to all be over."

There _was_ something more determined in the way Draven was carrying himself, that was true. Who he was on the trail of, though, we couldn't be sure. Luke was just waking up in his part of the arena, wherever that was. Charlotte was lying in the sand, blinking up at the sun. I knew she would die of thirst sooner rather than later, if she was lucky. Draven wouldn't be so kind if he found her before she died of her own accord. And Alexander was watching a pack of lizards hungrily, trying to decide how best to kill one without getting attacked.

Back to Draven with his stalking something or someone... It wasn't my imagination that every one of us leaned forward a bit when Draven was brought back onto the screen, rope in hand, knife in the other.

I couldn't help but be impressed with the way Draven had killed every one of his victims with a different weapon. Colin from District Five had been a longsword. Vin from District eight was a harpoon. Now whoever or whatever he was killing would be going down by knife. That sort of versatility was rare in the games.

"It's Alexander," Jonas groaned, seeing the shadow of a male in the distance, with lizards beyond the shadow.

He was right. Unless Luke had also come across a herd of lizards in the short time from when he was waking up to the point we were at, it had to be Alexander.

"Do you suppose he'll sneak up on him?" Blight asked no one in particular.

"I don't know," Mags said with a shrug. "It's certainly possible to sneak up on someone in sand, and Alexander seems so hungry I doubt he's thinking about anything but those lizards."

Preoccupation could mean death in the Games, and it looked like it was about to spell Alexander's.

"He'd be throwing into the sun," I said softly. "If he threw it, he'd be throwing into the sun, and it's different than a spear or a harpoon. Knives and axes are hard to aim into the sun. If he misses, he loses the element of surprise and his weapon, plus he might rile the lizards. If it were me, I'd risk getting close enough to kill in hand-to-hand combat. He's big enough to overpower Alexander, easily."

"You guys are forgetting the rope," Finnick said, just as Draven began making his lasso as he crept forward.

Of course, how could we forget?

Within moments, Draven had the lasso ready, he'd gotten within range, and it took just a bit of twirling a flick of his wrist to have Alexander tied up and helpless on the sand.

And there was something infinitely impressive about that sort of finesse. He could bring down beasts three times the size of Alexander, at least, with little more than a flick of the wrist and proper timing.

I couldn't help but be impressed and jealous all at once.

Draven made his way casually over to Alexander, whether because he could or because he didn't want to attract the attention of the lizards, and then he knelt beside the boy.

"Hey," he said.

Draven was my age, seventeen. Alexander, if I remembered correctly, was only fifteen, and although that was only a two year difference they looked so far apart in age it was more than a bit disconcerting for Draven to be kneeling over Alexander with a knife in his hand, poised to stab.

"Please just do it quickly," Alexander whimpered, looking at the long blade.

With a nod, an almost kind nod, Draven took the knife and gave it an expert thrust, probably hitting the heart given the timing of the cannon as Draven pulled it back out, wiping it off on the sand. He untied the rope, looped it up for storage, and then went over to kill a lizard before he went on his way for the day, but with none of the urgency he'd had that morning when he'd gotten up.

Perhaps he didn't know where to look next.

The hovercraft came for Alexander's body before the lizards could finish it off, and Draven began wandering the arena aimlessly, searching for signs of other tributes.

Thankfully, we saw our second and final death of the day just before it was time to visit with sponsors.

Charlotte was lying in the sand, and we knew it was only a matter of time once they moved from Luke hunting lizards to her lying motionless, rasping and twitching her fingers defiantly in the sand.

"Scarlett," she managed to rasp, and I shivered slightly.

I'd never particularly liked her saying my name, but it sounded eerie and angry as she lay dying, and I wished she would just get it over with and give up. There was nothing more I could do for her, and I was sick of watching her hold on to life when I knew she had to die eventually. I didn't like feeling like I'd failed at something.

"Water," she gasped out. "Could get me water?"

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and Finnick leaned to whisper in my ear, "Don't pay any mind to it. She's desperate and bitter because she failed, but there was nothing you could do. Okay? Don't blame yourself for her failings."

Finnick was one to talk. Luke still had a chance to win.

And it was more than that. Finnick would likely not be a mentor for too awfully long. District Four was a career district, with more winners than Seven had ever had, and by comparison I was probably going to spend the rest of my life watching the people I mentored die without there being anything I could do.

I was going to become Haymitch, I realized, bitter, alone, unfeeling, uncaring, unable to do anything for his largely pathetic tributes.

Except Haymitch wasn't entirely unfeeling or uncaring, he just seemed to prefer to be where most people were concerned because it was easier than being attached. It was safer than being attached.

"Scarlett Delannoy," she rasped again, and I shivered slightly, hardly noticing that Finnick had wrapped his arm around me in a comforting gesture. Once I realized he'd done it I wished he hadn't, but I didn't want to tell him to take it away, or to push him away, because it really did feel better with his arm around me. "If I don't make it, it's your fault," she whispered through her chapped lips. "I hope my mother kills you."

I snorted.

"I wouldn't be so flippant if I were you," Blight cautioned solemnly. "Marley and Alon Jacobsen are the apothecaries," he added by way of explanation.

"So?" I retorted. "I've never gone to them when I was sick."

"You went to your father," Blight said with a nod. "But your father is dead. You might need Marley Jacobsen someday, the crone that she is, so I would go out of my way not to anger her if I were you."

I hadn't thought of that, of course, hadn't thought of how much my life would be different without my family, and the reminder of their deaths was like a hard slap to the face.

Finnick pulled me closer and I hadn't realized I was crying until he wiped the tears off my cheek.

I got the feeling he wanted to kiss me, but didn't want to do so in front of so many people, and I was grateful for that. It wasn't that I didn't like it when he kissed me, but I felt so guilty about crossing that line Haymitch had warned me about in the heat of the moment, and I couldn't bring myself to tell Finnick about the boundary in case he got the wrong idea.

And was it the wrong idea? After all, I had enjoyed his kisses, enjoyed his touch even more than Haymitch's, and he made my insides twist when he looked at me like he wanted me. Was that what love was supposed to feel like?

And if it was, could I let him know anyway? Would that put him in danger, or me? Or would the Capitol make us marry to fulfill their sick entertainment purposes? I wouldn't put it past them to do it if they found out there was even attraction between us, make us marry and raise a bunch of children who would 'end up' in the Hunger Games.

The cannon fired and I looked up to find the hovercraft carrying away Charlotte's limp body.

I had failed her. She was dead and it was at least partially my fault.

No, even if it was love, the feeling that I had toward Finnick, I couldn't possibly let it show. That wasn't going to be my daughter someday, dying of thirst in a desert, or my son dying of hunger for the pleasure of the rich Capitol pigs.

I'd given enough of my life to the Capitol. They weren't getting anything else from me.

I mentioned that I was feeling tired at that point, knowing that I wasn't going to be needed for anything else for the rest of the Games, except for sleeping with my clients, of course.

Maybe I could take a nap.

I made my way down to the seventh floor with Blight, who seemed to be worried about me. Maybe he should have been. Maybe he shouldn't. I really didn't know much of anything at that point, about my sanity or anything else. I stepped into my room and frowned.

No envelop. No room. No client. Just a single white rose.

Snow had given me the night off, whether because of Charlotte's death or because of some other reason I didn't know enough to realize...

But I really didn't care as I peeled off my clothes and fell into bed what the reason was. I could sleep, I didn't have to do anything but sleep.

The faces of the dead that appeared every time I closed my eyes and the scent of the rose that wafted sinisterly from the other side of the room made me toss and turn all night, though, and I couldn't shake the feeling that Snow was just making it so that I was somehow in his debt.

The following day I made my way up to the twelfth floor feeling anything but refreshed, and I hoped that it would all be over soon. I didn't think I could handle too many more nights in the Capitol, and I couldn't leave until the Victor was on his way home, Luke or Draven, whoever survived.

Haymitch seemed to sense my exhaustion when I came upstairs, and he poured me a bit of coffee and a large amount of liquor.

"Drink it," he demanded.

I hesitated. If I drank the concoction it might make me feel better. I did trust Haymitch. But I didn't want to become Haymitch, did I? Was there even a point making a distinction there? Eventually, though, I did take the cup from him, sipping it slowly.

The taste was strong, burning, and almost nauseating, but I managed to hold it down. I would have been mortified if I hadn't at least been able to do that.

And I found as the liquid made its way down my throat, settling in my belly, that it felt good, that burning sensation.

The fact that I enjoyed it was not a comforting feeling, though, so I swore to myself not to drink liquor any more than I absolutely needed to.

We all settled down and I realized that there were only two people left, that it would be over any day now.

Draven and Luke, and one of them would be the victor of the 67th Hunger Games.

"Who do you think?" Blight asked Chaff and Haymitch as they filled up glasses of liquor and settled on one of the couches beside each other.

"Draven," both men said in unison.

I pressed my finger to my lips as the Games began for the day, with Luke going through his routine.

"I don't know if I can watch this," Finnick said with a wince. "I mean, we all know how this is going to end."

"You don't know that," I said softly. "Nobody would have bet on me, but I won anyway. I don't think anyone would have picked you over Stella, but you killed her anyway. Sometimes you just don't know."

They were moving toward each other across the dunes, probably completely unaware they were doing so. The room was tense with silence as we watched them come near to each other, the hot arena sun burning down over them. Claudius and Caesar were chatting, speculating the outcome of a showdown, should one happen that day.

"We're certainly getting to that part of the Games," Caesar said. "It could be over any day now, and from the look of the way they're walking, it could be over in a matter of hours, easily."

"I think that Luke's a bit stronger at the moment," Claudius said with a knowing voice. "He's been kept a bit better fed and a bit better watered, but Draven has such size over him, and he can work from long-range, which Luke has proved he's not as good with."

It was a good point. But before I had time to talk Finnick down, since he'd started fidgeting, we heard Draven mutter, "Gotcha."

And my blood ran a bit colder at that.

He knew he was on Luke's trail, and it really was going to be over in a matter of time. Without thinking about it, I grabbed Finnick's hand, squeezing it tightly, and I only noticed I'd done it when he squeezed my hand back gently.

They grew closer and closer, with Draven moving purposefully, getting glimpses of Luke, but apparently not liking his angle of attack, moving away a bit, then moving closer again.

Finally, he took out his rope and prepared his lasso.

It was about twenty minutes later when he came up from behind Luke, the rope poised and ready.

Luke turned at the last second, perhaps hearing the sound of the snapping rope as it flew through the air toward him, but he had no time to move out of the way. It was looped around him, pulling him to the ground before he had a chance to react.

"No," Finnick moaned. I squeezed his hand again.

Draven walked over to Luke casually, a smirk on his face as he took off his pack, setting it on the sand and kneeling down to take the knife out of Luke's hand.

"I actually liked you, you know," Draven said softly. "I didn't want it to come to you and me, but I guess it's the way it had to be." He tossed the knife to the side in the sand, opening his pack and looking inside it for something.

"Just kill me," Luke moaned. "Please make it quick."

"Oh, I will," Draven said casually, still fishing through his bag. "I have no interest in making you suffer. You should be proud of yourself, Luke. You made it so far."

"But I didn't win," Luke muttered bitterly. "I couldn't win."

"You're right," Draven agreed softly, pulling something very familiar to me out of his pack. "That was always my right."

"Is that a hand ax?" asked Caesar's voice.

"No," I whispered, sitting forward slightly as I took in the smooth curve of the handle. "It's a hatchet."

"Recognize it?" Draven said, turning to Luke. The bound tribute shook his head slightly, confused. "It's a hatchet," Draven explained. "The second I saw it in the stack of weapons, I knew I needed it, needed to get it for my last kill... For you, I suppose. Homage, I suppose you could say, to Scarlett Delannoy last year. Fitting, don't you think?"

Luke opened his mouth, maybe for a retort or to tease him for paying homage to me, but before he had a chance for words to escape his mouth, Draven drove the blade of the hatchet rather forcefully into the center of Luke's forehead, letting the glassy eyes to be covered with blood as a cannon blast was sounded and Claudius announced that Draven Dupre was the victor of the 67th Hunger Games.

And everyone in the room turned to look at me.


	19. Are We Crazy?: Finnick

**A/N: Finnick's POV**

Draven wasn't in terrible shape, we were told, when he was picked up by the hovercraft and transported back to the Capitol. Three to four days, it was suggested, and then he would be able to be reintroduced to the public.

"They want him back to a healthy weight," Scarlett said with a shrug. "And the dehydration, I guess. They don't want him doing his interview with chapped lips or something. You know how silly they are about looks here in the Capitol."

Oh, I knew, and I looked across the table at Scarlett and tried not to think about the way she looked that night in my bed.

Who could really blame the Capitol for wanting her? They would be mad not to.

But we weren't talking about Scarlett Delannoy, were we? We were talking about Draven Dupre, and I was sure that he would be joining us as soon as they could get him started on being a Capitol whore.

There were several reasons I didn't like this idea.

For one thing, Draven was attractive and strong and really just about any woman's dream. How was I supposed to compete with that? And if I wasn't wanted... Well, what use did they have for me? What else might they use me for?

For another, he seemed to have a profound interest in Scarlett, and he was older than her, by a few weeks, and as she said... she didn't have any interest in younger men. Despite the fact that she had iterated that nothing was going to change between us, there was always a chance that she would begin to see me differently. But if Draven came into the equation I might not ever have that chance.

"Is it always this boring?" Scarlett whined. "Waiting for them to be reissued into society?"

"Yes," Blight muttered, looking out the window at the streets below, the people celebrating Draven's victory. "It is always this painfully dull. You could always go throw something if it would make you feel better."

"I did that this morning," Scarlett sighed, propping her chin on her hands. "Maybe I'll go visit Haymitch."

Blight snorted.

"I wouldn't if I were you," he said. "He's wasted again. Mags, could you pass another roll?"

Mags tossed a District Seven roll over to Blight.

We had been staying out of our own floor since Luke's death. I was seeing his glassy eyes everywhere I turned, and it was bad enough that I had to know that I wasn't able to keep him alive, despite my best efforts.

Mags had told me that not everyone would live no matter what we did. It was a one-in-twenty-four chance each year, although sometimes we got a better shot than others, and most years we have better than average. Still, there was never a guarantee. After all, Scarlett and I had been far from guaranteed wins.

"Fine," Scarlett sighed. "I think I'm going to take a nap, then."

She'd worked the night before, so we just watched her go back to her room, my own pain at the way I was used being transferred onto her as she walked.

The following day was supposed to be the last day of Draven's confinement, and Scarlett and I decided to go throw things at targets in the training center just to keep from being bored.

"What was it like for you when you got out?" Scarlett asked, grabbing a rack of knives and another of axes.

"Mags was there," I said with a shrug. "And the others. You know, stylist and everything. It was normal, like the ones you see every year."

"No, I mean, what did you feel like?" she asked with a sigh. "I mean, I know what it's like. It's always the same. But how did you feel?"

I hadn't thought about it in so long that I had to stop for a moment.

"I guess I was relieved," I said, shrugging and picking up a spear experimentally. "The whole experience for me was so fast that I didn't even know what to think."

"I felt a bit sick," Scarlett whispered. "I still felt guilty about the kid I came in with."

She had officially had to kill the kid, I remembered, actually remarkably similarly to how Draven had killed Luke, and the boy had begged for it to be quick, too. No wonder she had seemed out of sorts since the last day of the Games.

"Do you think the Games make us crazy, or that they make us do crazy things?"

I shrugged.

"I think it depends," I said, thinking. "I mean, Titus was obviously crazy, eating people and whatnot. I think Charlotte was probably crazy. But you, me? I don't know. We definitely did crazy things, but we're not Haymitch or anything."

Scarlett nodded, but I couldn't help but see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she threw some knives at the target. She wanted to know about madness because...?

Because she thought she was mad? Because she worried Draven was mad?

She didn't seem to have liked my pointing out that we weren't Haymitch, but because she didn't want to be insulted somehow, or because she didn't want to be compared with him? I really didn't know the answer, but she didn't seem to be in any mood to be giving me any answers, so I didn't ask.

Instead, we just threw things at the targets for a while until we ran out of things to throw, and then we made our way back up to the District Seven floor, where Mags and Blight were talking about something in hushed tones, something they stopped talking about almost instantly.

"He's up," Blight said after a moment. "Just got word. The watching of the Games is tomorrow. Better get some sleep."

"Sounds good," said Scarlett, taking off to her room without another word.

I watched her go, wishing I could have followed her instead of going down into my own bed where the nightmares were.

The next day, we went out to watch the highlights of the Games again with Draven Dupre, who was looking a lot more like himself from before the Games had begun, except a bit more buff, I thought. Scarlett and Blight were there, sitting in the row in front of Mags and I, and Haymitch was behind us.

"Well, this ought to be interesting," Haymitch said sarcastically, as Caesar Flickerman schmoozed with Draven about trivial things, lightening the mood a bit before they rolled the film.

We watched Draven's face as he watched the Games and I couldn't help but notice that he seemed unfazed by everything, including the lizards eating people.

When the watching was over, Caesar announced that the three hour interview would be the next day, and we watched him and Draven shaking hands for the camera, smiling, and I looked down at Scarlett to see her frowning slightly, watching Draven like she was trying to figure him out, or at least trying to figure something important.

"I'm interested about this interview," Blight said as we made our way back to our own beds, well except for me and Scarlett, who were working.

"Yes, it could be very interesting," Mags said, nodding in agreement.

I was a bit concerned that her speech seemed to be deteriorating even more. But I had other things to focus on as I went straight back to my room, found my card, and went off to my night with some rich old woman.

But all anyone wanted to talk about, for the moment, anyway, was Draven Dupre. Even the woman I shared a bed with was tittering about how soon he might be on the market, and I just smiled and did everything I was supposed to do, trying to pretend she was Scarlett, but somehow that made it worse.

I didn't want to think about Scarlett sleeping with Draven Dupre, either.

The interview was the next day, and I settled into my seat in the audience again, watching as Draven was led onto the stage in an all-white suit that actually looked surprisingly good on him. He sat down beside Caesar and the anthem was played. I could see Scarlett shifting uneasily in her seat.

She wanted to know about the hatchet, I realized. That's the bit she was waiting for.

It took a while for Caesar to get there, though, as he talked Draven through his method of gaining followers (as 'allies' didn't seem the appropriate term), through long days of wandering, through what the lizard muttations tasted like, which I certainly could have gone all my life without knowing, but apparently it was what the Capitol viewers wanted to hear. Caesar had a good feel for that sort of thing.

"Now, Draven," Caesar finally said, "let's talk about the last two deaths, all right?"

Draven nodded.

"You and Charlotte parted ways, so that's not your kill," Caesar said, smiling. "Why did you team up with Charlotte in the first place?"

"To be perfectly honest," Draven said with a bit of a grin, "she was easy to convince with a smile. And that was pretty much my only criterion. There might have been better people to have teamed up with me, like Luke perhaps, but Charlotte was determined to outdo Scarlett Delannoy for whatever reason, and that drove her to do some things that made my own job a lot easier. Like starving our other companions when they became more of a burden than an asset. That wasn't really my sort of thing to do, but Charlotte was ruthless and desperate enough."

"So, let's talk for a bit about Luke's death, because that was really something you don't see every day," Caesar said good-naturedly.

Well, I would certainly hope you don't see people sticking weapons in each other's foreheads every day, but there are some pretty sick people in the Capitol. So maybe.

"I had planned that death for whoever was at the end," Draven said slowly. "Like I said, from the moment I saw the hatchet in the pile of weapons, I knew that's what I wanted for my finale. In a way, I'm sort of glad it was Luke. He deserved at quick end like that."

"So if it had been Charlotte?" Caesar prompted.

Scarlett shifted in her seat again.

"I might have dragged it out a bit more, yes," Draven said slowly. "But only because she deserved a painful death. I really wanted to recreate the moment when Scarlett Delannoy killed the boy from her District, as a mercy killing. I'm a bit... Well, I'm going to be honest with you, Caesar, I've been obsessed with Scarlett since she was first called at the reaping last year."

I looked down to see that Scarlett and frozen and tensed, and that many eyes throughout the audience were turning to her.

"Were you impressed by her?" Caesar prompted. "Was there something in her strategy you liked? Or is it something else?"

Draven actually smiled, a shy sort of smile, and I couldn't help but feel a stab of jealousy in my chest when I saw how good-looking he was when he wasn't being cocky.

"My first thought was that she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen," Draven said quietly, and the whole of the room was still as he described Scarlett. "And then, then they showed her in the chariots and I knew she had to be the most beautiful girl in the world. And then the interview... She's like an angel, so sweet and caring. And the way she took care of the boy from her District as long as she could... And then, then she came out swinging." He grinned. "She's a fighter, a really deadly machine. But she's human. She couldn't hunt. She couldn't climb a tree. She had weaknesses too, but I was hooked. She's what I was working toward winning for. I want to really meet her, as a fellow victor."

Caesar wrapped up the interview at that, and President Snow came on to crown Draven Dupre as a victor.

When the lights and cameras stopped, we all went down to the stage, all went to meet Draven, although no one in particular stepped forward to talk to him. For a moment, people just watched him, just took in his appearance, and he looked around at us, as if trying to decide whom to address himself to first.

"Hello," he said awkwardly, to the group at large.

Blight pushed Scarlett forward, just as I had been pressured to be the first to talk to Scarlett after the Capitol had decided we would make a cute couple.

"Welcome to the victors, Draven," she said softly, in her sweet, Games voice.

"Scarlett Delannoy," he said, reverently. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

There was some smirking around the group as he lifted her hand and kissed it, and a few people whispered to each other. Although Scarlett really didn't react to the gesture, I wanted to rip his lips off his face.

But I probably would have gotten in trouble for that.

"I'm not younger than you," he said, pointing out, as I had feared, that he was the one more suited to be with her.

"I know," she responded dryly.

His eyes searched her face for some sort of sign, for something he could use to win her over.

"I know everything about your family," he said softly, smiling.

"My family's dead," she said coldly, pulling her hand from his grasp and instantly dropping the sweet exterior. His face flickered with shock and horror. "A fire. An... an accident."

I wanted to reach out and hold her, knowing how difficult even discussing that little bit would be for her, but I stood rooted to the spot. She wouldn't have wanted to be publically comforted by anyone. Scarlett Delannoy was a strong, independent woman.

But she was a child, and weak, and scared. I'd seen her fears and I knew what she looked like when she cried with pain from her very core.

Draven Dupre could never understand that. He could worship her strength and revel in her beauty, but he could never, ever know her like I did.

Why?

Because she knew, like I did, that if she let him in at all like she had with me, he would be in danger. Scarlett didn't like the thought of anyone being in danger on her account, and she even pushed me away when she could, what little bit she could. But she needed me, and she needed Haymitch, because she needed someone. And she'd already let us in.

No, Draven Dupre would never understand, and yet despite the hurt on his face at her sudden coldness, I watched as he continued to try to win her over as we all stood talking to each other, and I realized she was toying with him, leading him on and then cutting him down, for amusement, perhaps, or to wear him out so he would stop trying.

But he showed no sign of relenting, so if that was her goal, only time would tell.

The thing that stuck out to me more than anything, though, was the way all the other victors rejected him.

Draven Dupre, I realized, would not be joining us watching the Games the following year. Our group showed little interest in him apart from Scarlett, whose only interest appeared in teasing him mercilessly. The other victors paid no mind to him either, and the only people who showed any concern about him at all were Ptolemy and Rayne, his own District victors. Ptolemy especially, because it meant that he could finally retire.

Eventually we were told that it was time to clear out, and we were given our times for train departures for the following day. I watched Draven trail after Scarlett as we made our way to the elevators, and I managed to squeeze into an elevator with the two of them. Draven gave me a dirty look, but Scarlett almost looked relieved as I squeezed in between the two of them.

"I'm tired," I sighed. "All the excitement's worn me out. Can't wait to sleep in my own bed. You?"

Scarlett got the hint and nodded, glancing at the indicator that said we were on the fourth floor. I didn't get out, though. She frowned at me.

"I have something I wanted to talk with Blight about."

Draven looked more than a bit irked, but he held his tongue.

When we got off on the seventh floor, Scarlett and I watched the elevator doors close on Draven before turning to each other and just staring at each other for a long moment, silent.

"He's crazy about you," I said conversationally.

"He's stupid," she retorted, turning toward the table slightly, but not moving at all. "You sound jealous."

"I'm not," I lied, and I knew she could tell I was lying, but I didn't know what else to say. Yes, I'm so jealous of him, let me prove how much better I could love you? No, I'm not jealous of him, I don't need to be, he's not seen how heavenly you are screaming in passion?

No, I had nothing else to say. I just stared at her, wishing she would tell me that she didn't care about him at all, that there was nothing to be jealous of because Draven Dupre meant nothing to her, but she just stood there, saying nothing.

"It meant nothing," she finally said. "With us, Finnick. It was just to help you. Nothing is changing."

"Of course," I choked out.

Blight arrived on an elevator by himself and he looked at me questioningly for a moment, but I just shook my head.

"Good night," I said firmly. "Both of you. See you next year."

And with that I turned on my heel and caught the next elevator down, ignoring the fact that they watched me as I stood there waiting.

When the elevator doors closed on me, I sank to my feet, burying my face in my hands, and dreaming up all the ways I could make Draven disappear if he touched Scarlett.

But all I could do was wait the long months between.

**A/N: That's it for **_**Luke's Story**_**! I'm going to be starting the next bit soon, since my finals will be over on Wednesday. Keep your eyes peeled for **_**The 68th Games: Kimbra's Story**_**! It will have more Finnick/Scarlett/Draven/Haymitch drama!**

** -C**


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